Tales from Techsupport

OK Here's one:

We have a software system for our Sheriff's dispatch, this system has 3 Windows 2003 Servers, 3 windows Xp pro workstations, all in their own isolated Active Directory domain. I suggested they get absorbed as a child in our Main forest - however the vendor insisted on doing it this way. Own forest, own domain blah blah blah...

Ok - fine whatever, I already hate dealing with your fucking company.

So -- I get an email from the dispatch supervisor - apparently, the two client computers clocks sometimes drift - I know big shocker -- clocks drift, who'd a thunked it??? but anyways I digress the problem then being if they release the officer from a call on one computer they can't dispatch him to another call immediately because the ending event is after the beginning event. Or vice-versa if it's done from the other direction... Of course this could be solved by programming the system correctly - have the Database read the SERVER time for the timestamp -- tell the client's clock to go fuck itself. but hey, that would involve programing shit the right way - something I am convinced this company is incapable of doing.

Now we get to the kicker: in this email is a forward from their support tech: That says Have your IT guy sync the clock on the workstations to the server.


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By default Windows server 2003 runs a time server, when you turn it into an AD controller it becomes an Authoritative Time server for your domain -- why? Because Kerberos requires it. This is default behavior -- guess what I found? Those stupid fucking nuckleheads had turned OFF THE WINDOWS TIME SERVICE!

Jeeeee -- think that there's our problem?

So have your IT guys fix shit that's already fixed on their own domain, cause we can't run it that way -- oh, and turn on Essential services that we turned off because we're stupid fucking morons who you gave $400,000 to.

God I hate those pricks.

I sometimes wonder how I missed the boat on companies like this.

Thousands of dollars for shitty work, but don't worry about that, I'll charge you more to fix my fuckups for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

I sometimes wonder how I missed the boat on companies like this.

Thousands of dollars for shitty work, but don't worry about that, I'll charge you more to fix my fuckups for you.

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It really sounds like that. I'm guessing 2 of the 3 servers are just so they can have 2 DC which is best practice when supporting a 3 workstations ;)

No edits, was going to type a whole 3 workstations then decided not to but missed deleting the a.

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I'm guessing 2 of the 3 servers are just so they can have 2 DC which is best practice when supporting a 3 workstations

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You might think that - however, only 1 of the servers is a DC. :cheers:

Back in April one of our websites underwent a major overhaul to deal with some customer-based account changes.
A bunch of new tools were released internally to replace a single utility that allowed us to access it previously.
We lost the ability to access it consistently shortly thereafter.
Started getting sporadic proxy errors. Documented with screenshots, times, etc. Escalated to development.
Dev: "Oh, it's not us, it's the proxy server."
Me: "You DO know this is a business-critical site, right? Contact the proxy admin and IDFC if you have to give him a wine box or something, we need this site to function."
Dev: "It works fine for me."

I escalate it to NetOps, who lets the issue sit for 2 weeks before closing the ticket.

Fast-forward to the past couple weeks. Customers are now starting to experience ongoing issues when accessing the site as well.
We have been sending daily (sometimes hourly) emails to development (cc: manager) about the issue. The sales department is aware of it as well.
The manager emails us today:
Mgr: "I want you to get on the phone with the web provider and find out why we're having problems."
Me: "We have asked for the information from development and have been denied."
Mgr: "I want you to get on the phone with the proxy admin and find out why we're having problems."
Me: "I escalated it to NetOps and got no response after 2 weeks of an open ticket."
Mgr: "I want you to (insert Charlie Brown wah wah wah)"
After over 90 minutes of back-and-forth "we are getting nowhere with these escalations from our positions, we need managerial intervention" he takes an email I wrote with some specific info and a bunch of screenshots, and forwards it to 3 NetOps people with a simple note of "FYI".

*facepalm*

So last night, our main customer-facing website goes down.

404 all over the place.

I email development this morning at 8:05am: "Hi, website's down again, have had customer calls about it all morning"
No response til 10:44am... after which I had gotten my 4th call about it, and two coworkers have had 3 each, plus a number of emails
From the Development Manager, who was responding to the Sales Manager with a CC to me as the "lead tech on duty"
"The website was scheduled to be transferred, not shut down."
Uh, well, dingbat, they SHUT IT DOWN.
NOT TO MENTION they never told us it was going to be transferred and that there could have been "a period" of downtime.

*headdesk*

I love intermittent phone problems...

So I'm on the phone with phone tech:

It goes like this:

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.

ring ring -
Hello, Hi, Ok, Call you back.


I think I need to see a fucking shrink now...

"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment...."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment...."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment...."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment...."
"Corporate accounts payable, Nina speaking. Just a moment...."

Overheard from a coworker's call:

"No, sir, you cannot update your software by way of your iPhone, you need to be at the computer that you use the software on to do the download..."

I am so tired of supporting e-mail. Mainly because I'm tired of having to explain why internet is required to check your e-mail. I remember one time a customer asked if they made e-mail that didn't require internet, and was flabbergasted when I said it was called the Post Office.

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I am so tired of supporting e-mail. Mainly because I'm tired of having to explain why internet is required to check your e-mail. I remember one time a customer asked if they made e-mail that didn't require internet, and was flabbergasted when I said it was called the Post Office.

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My favorite is always the - I'm supposed to get this email and I haven't gotten it yet.
Ok... and when was it sent?
2 minutes ago...

Yeah, call me back in an HOUR if you still haven't seen it, then, if I have nothing better to do, And If I'm in a good mood MAYBE I'll go look in the logs for you.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Yeah, call me back in an HOUR if you still haven't seen it, then, if I have nothing better to do, And If I'm in a good mood MAYBE I'll go look in the logs for you.

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So never?

Quote:

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So never?

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Well, I'll probably get to it sometime before the eventual Heat Death of the universe...

This was today in a 3 way call where the merchant had me on one line and his developer on another phone. Not a separate line, not a conference call. He's using two phones:

Merchant: I need all my account details for (System A) so that my developer can complete testing.
Me: (System A) is just so you can see how we are billing you. It's not used for testing. Your developer should be using (System B) for the testing.
Merchant: Hang on.
Merchant to the developer on the other phone: They are saying you don't need to do testing.
Me: .... that's not what I said.
Developer indistinctly shouting at merchant.
Merchant: The developer says he's always needed to do testing.
Me: That's right. You gave him the wrong details. Give him details of (System B), that is what he is asking you for.
Merchant: I gave him the details of (System A).
Me: Ok, now give him (System B) details.
Merchant: But he said he needs the details of (System A) to do the tests.
Me: No, he doesn't, he...
Merchant cuts me off setance: Wait a sec
To developer: They are saying you don't need to do the tests.
Developer shouting more distinctly. It ain't pretty.
Merchant: This is getting rather complicated.
Me: Give ALL your passwords to your developer and have him call me.

What the fuck is wrong with some people that you can plainly tell them something and they still get it wrong 2 seconds later!? It's not like I could have made it any easier for him to understand, there was no baser level to go...

Quote:

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What the fuck is wrong with some people that you can plainly tell them something and they still get it wrong 2 seconds later!?

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Aw, how cute! You work in tech support and still think people listen! :rofl:

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Originally Posted by Layonya

Aw, how cute! You work in tech support and still think people listen! :rofl:

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Old habit's die hard. I even have a laminated note on my desk that reads "FYI: The person you are speaking with is an idiot."

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Originally Posted by Taziir

Old habit's die hard. I even have a laminated note on my desk that reads "FYI: The person you are speaking with is an idiot."

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OH OH OH!

I need to make me one of those, ESPECIALLY when the idiotic sales reps come over to talk to me!

Customers are complete and total idiots, and as more internet connected devices come out they will expect more and more from their ISP tech support(because we all know getting email on your iPhone is the job of the ISP support to setup and not AT&T and Apple to walk you through and know the server settings. and they really should know the server settings for the major ISPs like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon).

Just received in an Email:


"Subject: Deleting sound from video

Hi, Melcar,

No rush on this - it came up as something we may need to do in the future during our last jury trial. Is there a way to delete sound from a video?"


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I'm trying to come up with a Tactful way of saying:
"PRESS THE FUCKING MUTE BUTTON"

Any suggestions?

"Slam you head in a car door a few times, the answer will come!" sounds like a logical answer to give

Coworker comes to my desk today. She's in the "usage" half of the Support department.
She describes the situation. Customer has a client file that, when accessing a certain window, isn't displaying expected options to change certain dates.
So I poke around for 2 minutes, find a certain setting that determines what type of client file return it is.
I say to coworker, "Is it because it's this type of return?"
She says no
I go to my desk with a copy of the client's data, change the return type, and wallah, that previous date window is now working correctly.
So I take one of the sample client files, change it to match the return type of the customer, and waddyaknow, the date window doesn't work. I change it back, and now it works.
I go back to coworker's desk and say "it's cuz the return is this type of return" and she says "no, you're wrong."

Hokay.

I got that a lot from people who were certain of something but didn't actually know shit about it. The worst is the "My Email is broken!" people who absolutely don't get it that their ISP has blocked port 25 for some arcane idiotic reason.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

their ISP has blocked port 25 for some arcane idiotic reason.

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Spam control. Blocking port 25 to outside mail servers prevents an infected machine from spewing junk on to the Internet. It has become relatively common.

Not that anyone uses it, but port 587 is actually the defined port for SMTP submission. Port 25 was originally intended for server to server traffic. That's my interpretation of the RFC, anyway.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Filthy

Spam control. Blocking port 25 to outside mail servers prevents an infected machine from spewing junk on to the Internet. It has become relatively common.

Not that anyone uses it, but port 587 is actually the defined port for SMTP submission. Port 25 was originally intended for server to server traffic. That's my interpretation of the RFC, anyway.

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587 is frequently blocked as well.

587 at least on Comcast requires authentication to sendmail too, I personally see no issue with Port 25 being blocked. any properly configured SMTP server should be able to accept on 587.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

587 is frequently blocked as well.

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I've never seen 587 blocked, but it's probably only a matter of time until the spammers start using it as well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

587 at least on Comcast requires authentication to sendmail too, I personally see no issue with Port 25 being blocked. any properly configured SMTP server should be able to accept on 587.

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Are you sure authentication is what you're trying to say? If you can reach the server to authenticate, the port isn't being blocked.

587 seems to be Comcast's preferred port, anyway. The language on their page amuses me.

I thought use of port 587 always required your mail server login while 25 was just open. and that is why the ISPs forced everyone onto 587 to use the in house mail and blocked 25. or do the spambots have their own built in SMTP servers and simply use 25 and never touch your ISP server?

From what I understand, the dialers tend to use YOUR system as an SMTP server, and it connects to destination servers via port 25, which is now more intended for server-to-server connections. This way, your PC can't be used as a mail server because you can't make direct SMTP server-to-server connections.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

I thought use of port 587 always required your mail server login while 25 was just open. and that is why the ISPs forced everyone onto 587 to use the in house mail and blocked 25. or do the spambots have their own built in SMTP servers and simply use 25 and never touch your ISP server?

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587 does require SMTP-Auth.

The conversation was on port blocking when you brought up authentication on 587. I was just making sure you actually meant authentication and weren't misusing it to mean port blocking on 587. (I work in a place where authentication, port blocking, wireless problems, solar flares, and horoscopes all get thrown in the 'Email No Work' bucket. Since they all have different solutions, it forces me to ask for clarification.)

Back in Ye Olde Days, SMTP servers were set up to be totally open relays, that is no sort of verification for sending or receiving email. This was considered a polite thing to do so others could use your email server to send email if theirs happened to be down.

Then came spammers. Now being an open relay was a bad thing as it allowed spammers to use your server to send their junk. As a response, people started requiring verification that you were one of their users in order to use their servers. Because SMTP was not originally designed with any sort of authentication in mind, POP-Before-SMTP became common. POP-Before-SMTP required a client to authenticate via POP before sending email. Once you had authenticated, POP-Before-SMTP would typically put the client IP address into a hash file the SMTP engine could check. Not in the hash file or in relays? Though shit, no sending email from here. If you're still using port 25 to send email and your SMTP server doesn't require SMTP-Auth on port 25, there's a good chance it's using POP-Before-SMTP.

Suddenly bereft of open relays, malware authors started including an SMTP engine in their viruses. Now they were skipping the infectee's SMTP server all together and delivering their junk directly to the target. As a response, ISP's began blocking outgoing traffic on port 25 to servers outside of their network. Just because you're on one company's network doesn't necessarily mean you want to use their SMTP servers, so a way to contact outside SMTP servers was needed. Enter SMTP Submission, port 587, and SMTP-Auth.

Once the balance shifts in favor of using 587 over port 25, the next step for malware authors to begin using packet sniffing to pick the SMTP-Auth string out of the data stream for SMTP-Auth. Which will likely force server admins to require TSL/SSL. After that, spammers will likely extend the packet sniffing to data injection/man-in-the-middle after the authentication takes place, substituting their data for legitimate data. No idea where it will go from there, but shit will likely get weird.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

From what I understand, the dialers tend to use YOUR system as an SMTP server, and it connects to destination servers via port 25, which is now more intended for server-to-server connections. This way, your PC can't be used as a mail server because you can't make direct SMTP server-to-server connections.

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Mostly correct. There really isn't any difference between your mail client (technically a mail server) and an actual server sending mail. They both connect to port 25 from a random port. ISPs block traffic travelling to port 25 anywhere except their own mail servers.

Interestingly, most of the ISPs I have also set their own mail servers to allow relaying which seems odd to me...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Coworker comes to my desk today. She's in the "usage" half of the Support department.
She describes the situation. Customer has a client file that, when accessing a certain window, isn't displaying expected options to change certain dates.
So I poke around for 2 minutes, find a certain setting that determines what type of client file return it is.
I say to coworker, "Is it because it's this type of return?"
She says no
I go to my desk with a copy of the client's data, change the return type, and wallah, that previous date window is now working correctly.
So I take one of the sample client files, change it to match the return type of the customer, and waddyaknow, the date window doesn't work. I change it back, and now it works.
I go back to coworker's desk and say "it's cuz the return is this type of return" and she says "no, you're wrong."

Hokay.

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She obviously suffers from the Dunning-Kruger effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger

We sent out a mass email to customers today about one of our products as a combination "major update/revamp" and "Hey peeps check out this redone product."

I've "sold" a license for it already; rather, I talked someone into buying it. I had tried to transfer them to Sales, but Sales is too busy being in their "beginning of the month" BS meeting.

Quote of the day: "You're SO much easier to get answers from than those Sales people."

So other IT staff member just calls me over "come help for a sec"... sure what do you need...

Blah blah blah - can't see all stuff in a users "My Documents" (we do folder redirection so My documents is actually a network location)...

Systray has "offline files" & "Network Cable Unplugged" icons...




Can anybody guess the answer?

They had unplugged their network cable to use it to stir creamer into their coffee because the kitchen was out of those little sticks?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

They had unplugged their network cable to use it to stir creamer into their coffee because the kitchen was out of those little sticks?

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That's stupid. Nobody ever does that. Instead, I'm guessing his internet was full and he was draining it.
(http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2006-02-22/)

More website outages last night and today.

Customer called up with an error 403 forbidden. I'm getting it too. He says "can't we do this a manual code entry way?" and I had to tell him "nope"... cuz I need the website to be able to do that.

Of course.

And all management wants are screenshots from customers including the date and time so they can "build a case" against the ISP.
FUCK BUILDING IT. I've done that for the last FOUR MONTHS.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

So other IT staff member just calls me over "come help for a sec"... sure what do you need...

Blah blah blah - can't see all stuff in a users "My Documents" (we do folder redirection so My documents is actually a network location)...

Systray has "offline files" & "Network Cable Unplugged" icons...




Can anybody guess the answer?

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Layer 8?

To all Incompetent Admins out there: Pay some fucking attention to what you are doing.

I know it's complicated when you have a "Windows Explorer window " open in one spot - and a "backup database window" on another -- I know they look similar - THAT IS WHY YOU HAVE TO PAY SOME FUCKING ATTENTION, they are not the same fucking thing. Make SURE of what you are clicking delete on.

Especially since YOU are a Domain Admin! You can cause Damage -- Yes, the fact that I can fix Most of your fuckups is not the issue, they should not happen to begin with.

and don't tell me you know when you obviously didn't.

Lets see -- Overwritten word file, still in original location... Backup database -- hmmm, the file is missing. You didn't have the right window selected when you hit the delete key. Go right ahead and tell me all you want that you KNOW to pay attention to that, when You Obviously didn't pay attention to that. There is no other physical way that scenario could have happened.

Ok, I just thought I'd share it this way... the above is my Rant -- this one is actually more coherent -- The email I sent to my girlfriend about the same situation:




She was attempting to restore a file for --------------... one he
accidentally saved over.

- Ok, so she goes and pulls up the backup system, instead of using the
Job I've already got created, she attempts to create a new job. (yes,
I have shown her how to use my premade job - she just forgot) --

So, I help her get her job created, get the right device, but then she
screws up and restores the file to the wrong spot, Panics, deletes her
newly created job, starts using my Pre-made job.
Forgets to clear the previous selection -- the files restored The LAST
time the job was run - which fortunately was just garbage files of
mine from when I taught her how to run a restore.

Restores the wrong version of the file... Panics {again} - deletes
the file from the backup database, when she meant to remove it from
the Computers...


So, She ran the restore 4 different times, never got the correct file
restored - did restore files that shouldn't have been 3 times (my
files, no damage done) -- and deleted a section of the Backup
database...

So, I had to go in and restore the backup database, find the proper
file and version and restore from backup...


Basically she turned a 2 minute job into a 1 hour job.

Phone call. When running our application, customer gets an error that only happens for 2 reasons: bad install, and bad folder permissions.
Me: I need you to verify the permissions on the folder.
Tech: It shows "system", "administrators", "users", "everyone", (and two other groups I don't remember.)
Me: OK, what are the permissions for Users?
Tech: How do I check that?
Me: Click the Users group. What does it show at the bottom for Full Control?
Tech: Done. How do I check that?
Me: Is the box to the right of Full Control checked?
Tech: No.
Me: Check it. Then click Apply.
Tech: Done. Wait, now the other groups at the top of the window are gone...

This was a 50 minute fuster where she couldn't even rename a folder logged in, ostensibly, as Administrator. Though I treated her as a "hostile witness" so to speak when she asked me how to map a network drive...

Website problem this morning.
I send an email to my department, my manager, and the dev team. Maybe 9 people. "Website isn't accessible."
This email was apparently forwarded to all the managers.
One manager then emails her group, who apparently have been trying to use it all morning, and instead of letting someone know there's a problem - or maybe stopping after the first 10 tries in a couple minutes - complains "why didn't tech support let us know" with a CC to me. (Her dept uses the website so infrequently, it's never affected them when we had a problem...)
So then one of her people (who received the email!) walks over to my desk, says "there's a problem with the website", to which I responded "yes I know, you got an email. I got a copy of it."
So an hour later the website starts working again. I reply to EVERYONE who had been included in the email thread - all 14 people or so. So then the manager of the other group CALLS the woman who walked over to my desk, via speakerphone, when
-The woman's desk is RIGHT OUTSIDE HER OFFICE
-SPEAKERPHONE
-I had ALREADY EMAILED a copy to this woman
to tell her subordinate that an email was sent that the website is working again.

Sometimes I think my coworkers are just "playing office", the way kids play "family" or "grocery store".

FFUUUUUuuuuuu.....
what a bunch of cretins.

(Mileron's post above could very well have happened here too...)

Said to another techie(same one from the backup rant) this morning right before lunch:

Is it really a good idea to set the printer right underneath the dripping frozen air conditioner?

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Said to another techie(same one from the backup rant) this morning right before lunch:

Is it really a good idea to set the printer right underneath the dripping frozen air conditioner?

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LOL there you have two problems. electronics+water and a company too cheap to replace a window unit. that or its too cool outside(AC units dont like ambient temps around the condenser below 65), could be low on Freon. but meh odds are the user wont move the printer and just call and ask why its not printing.....

Quote:

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electronics+water and a company too cheap to replace a window unit. that or its too cool outside(AC units dont like ambient temps around the condenser below 65), could be low on Freon. but meh odds are the user wont move the printer and just call and ask why its not printing..

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Actually it's not a window unit - it's one of the two AC units in our server vault (the storage side) -- so the compressor is modified for cold weather operation. The printer was actually yanked out of service, and put on a desk that happened to be under the AC unit -- that had frozen solid that morning.

And the actual cause of the AC unit freezing seems to have been the Anti-Freezing thermistor had somehow fallen out of the coils. So, it didn't cutout when it should have to thaw.

One of my coworkers got this one...

Customer asks about our government-approved vendor's VPN solution.
He wants to know if we have a security document explaining how the security is set up on (my company's) side. Since we are curious if (vpn client) is connected via VPN once the tunnel is established, what's to prevent someone from accessing the client computer from (my company) via the VPN tunnel?

I don't even know how to respond to that.

Just give him your credit card numbers and back away slowly....

Answer: "We're too busy surfing shady free porn sites to bother trying to mess with PCs that connect via VPN"

Being in the phone queue, I get a LOT of strange "wrong number" calls.

The really funny thing is, folks either have to go through a 2-level or 9-level menu to get to me.

By that point, it's no longer a wrong number. It's freaking stupidity.

My hubby got a corker today.

"I can't send this 6 GB email! And now my computer won't boot!"

"Well, what happened?"

"I only had 10 programs running, and it didn't send instantly, so i pushed the power button. Then it wouldn't reboot ... so I pushed it again. Only 15 times, is that a problem?"

Head, meet desk - and I didn't even talk to them!

Just today... installed some software on a workstation in the network. Software install fails, asks for server to get said software update first.
OK, log off, walk over to server, start update.

Meanwhile, coworker sits at his workstation doing nothing. 2 hours later he asks me if he can work again. I give him a dumbfounded look, telling him he was able to work all morning.
He was sitting at the windows logon screen, the username still had "administrator" in it, and he tried to log on with his own password.
No, that didn't work.
Windows even asked him to check username/pw, and he was still too dense to grasp what happened. The thought to just type his username into the field never occurred to him.
All that after 11 years or more of logging onto a standard windows network.

So I log him on with *his* username, then proceed to log him off again and install the software update from earlier... now he's whining he can't work - well it's not my fault he wasted 2 hours staring at a logon screen earlier in the morning. He could have just asked at 7.30 instead of 9.30 ...

Sometimes I can't wait for the day the zombie apocalypse comes, because no matter what, I'll find time to hunt him down and off him.

(some might find my behavior assholish, but it's not the first time he's pulled this particular stunt either. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with this guy.)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ronaan

Sometimes I can't wait for the day the zombie apocalypse comes, because no matter what, I'll find time to hunt him down and off him.

(some might find my behavior assholish, but it's not the first time he's pulled this particular stunt either. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with this guy.)

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That sounds like at least half a dozen people in my office... so I feel your pain

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ronaan

Just today... installed some software on a workstation in the network. Software install fails, asks for server to get said software update first.
OK, log off, walk over to server, start update.

Meanwhile, coworker sits at his workstation doing nothing. 2 hours later he asks me if he can work again. I give him a dumbfounded look, telling him he was able to work all morning.
He was sitting at the windows logon screen, the username still had "administrator" in it, and he tried to log on with his own password.
No, that didn't work.
Windows even asked him to check username/pw, and he was still too dense to grasp what happened. The thought to just type his username into the field never occurred to him.
All that after 11 years or more of logging onto a standard windows network.

So I log him on with *his* username, then proceed to log him off again and install the software update from earlier... now he's whining he can't work - well it's not my fault he wasted 2 hours staring at a logon screen earlier in the morning. He could have just asked at 7.30 instead of 9.30 ...

Sometimes I can't wait for the day the zombie apocalypse comes, because no matter what, I'll find time to hunt him down and off him.

(some might find my behavior assholish, but it's not the first time he's pulled this particular stunt either. Sometimes I just don't know what to do with this guy.)

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And people like this are why there will always be tech support and always be WoW/MMO accounts getting stolen. I bet at home he clicks yes to all popups.

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Originally Posted by clueless client

If I understand correct, we will not see blog.<domain>.com while <domain>.com DNS provider is <another host>, correct?

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Seriously? And you're the technical contact?

Yeah, WTF? Who cares where the DNS server is hosted, I just care if it's getting updates.

The following conversation has been seriously paraphrased and reduced from three 90 minute conversations, broken up slightly to show the separation and lack of information they're trying to give me

Tech: We've had some data corruption
Me: Okay, restore from last backup
Tech: We've had some data corruption
Me: Okay, restore from last backup

Tech: We've had some backup corruption
Me: Well, there's not much I can do for you in that respect.
Tech: We've had some data corruption
Me: We've gone over this - if you can't restore it from backup, there's nothing I can do for you
Tech: We've had some data corruption, and I have a folder full of information in one place that has data modified as of 3/2010, which is missing data from as recently as 10/2010, so I'd like you to wave your magic wand and make it reappear
Me: Well, if you don't have a working backup, I can't re-add records and data tables where they don't exist
Tech: You mean you don't track that?
Me: ....
Me: No sir, sorry, it's up to the respective office or tech group for the office to be responsible for their own backups.
Tech: What if I have the files from April, and give you some incremental backup data from October, can you use that to restore working clients?
Me: No, because information FileQ will have record pointers going back to FileA through FileP and you'll end up with broken records, bad pointers, and other errors I don't even want to imagine

Tech: Well, we have a backup but it's from June...
Me: So restore it?
Tech: It was a DFS share, we can't restore it
Me: You can't do a selective restore of folders to a different location on the share and move the respective client data back into its proper location?
Tech: Let me get my director
Me: ...
Director: Hi, so we've had this major assfuck of a problem where our DFS Replication fucked up and replicated old data from April 2010 onto the current datasets, and our last known good backup was June 2010, but we want you to magically make client data reappear from October
Me: ... I'm sorry, I still cannot magically make your client data reappear since you have no recent backup
Director: Well we're paying Kroll Ontrack umpteen assfucking thousands of dollars to restore the data that corresponds to your company's client data, but they can't guarantee a working folder structure
Me: But my program requires that, because files inside a respective client dataset are identically named with no other identifying information
Director: So you mean if I give you a set of DVDs with 27GB of data you can't pick and choose which files belong to which client so I can get my users back up and running?
Me: ... ... ... ... No.

Whoa, so the individual files don't have header information containing the date/time and file location they were written to? if they did, you could make a script that would sort them into separate directories.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Whoa, so the individual files don't have header information containing the date/time and file location they were written to? if they did, you could make a script that would sort them into separate directories.

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I've run into backup programs that have this flaw. It drives me NUTS. It's one of the FEW reasons I still made rotating tape backups outside of the DFS for a few select mission-critical things. It was worth it too, we had a box go down HARD and were able to get configuration data from a week ago right back up (I made a new tape every 2 weeks and kept 6 months worth off site) It took all night to back up the requisite 140+ gigs of stuff to LTO so only the super important stuff went there but noone else was using the drives for anything else and they wouldn't buy me better hardware when "it was already being backed up". Worked great when they realized that, despite daily differential backups on everything that wasn't a workstation, they were still 10 years behind on OS install discs and configs for several legacy boxes.

It was fun walking in to the MIS and CEO having meltdowns at each other over how many days it was going to take to fix things just to say "it's fixed! Yeah, remember that meeting I held last year where I pointed out the holes in our backup strategy? I took matters into my own hands with some hardware that was getting recycled otherwise and just implemented it. The documentation is in all the right places. I sent you an e-mail after I did it because my answer to your question of 'how much is it going to cost' was 'a few hours of my time some weekend' and you didn't say I *couldn't* do it." Heh. That was a nice bonus check :)
Heads would probably roll if I tried that at a larger company, despite it being in my job description.

Shit like that always makes me feel like I should be wearing a cape or something. Sure, you have to hold them back when you pee and they get caught in revolving doors, but there are days...

At my place right now, we're running large numbers of multi-core servers that each have a piece of a very large database for fast parallel access, and even though each server is running Raid arrays (some software-mirrored in Linux, some hardware Raid5 arrays with hot swap drives, depending on which model of server), we would have some problems like two sides of a mirrored array going out at once, and restoring all that damn data was like some kind of "Houston, we have a problem" shit.

So our solution? We bought TWO 24-drive external drive housings with some kind of multi-SATA external bus shit and a couple of cards to connect it to a big-ass server we had laying around, and stuffed them both with 2 terabyte drives, and fed them all with a new 30-amp power breaker running through a 30-amp UPS. Now the big server acts as a back-up processor with a copy of the WHOLE database while we repair and reload the broken array from the big server's gigantic pile of drives. It's going to allow us to sleep soundly when normally we'd be up all night trying to get it in shape for the start of business.

Quote:

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Just to let you know this morning I received about 20 e-mails that were sent to me on Monday. Seems odd. A couple were time sensitive (meeting notes for yesterday afternoon), notice of death of a client. I don’t work Mondays so I’m not sure if that had anything to do with the glitch……FYI

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Last week I had one (different person) -- I didn't get a single email yesterday or today -- but I'm getting Yesterday's emails today! help!

See that little + thingy by the word "today"? Yeah -click that.

Or in the case of the first quote -- click the plus thingy by the word "Yesterday" -- god I am so fucking good.

Me: Hi, thank you for calling System Support, this is Me, how can I help you?
Customer: Yeah, does your (Tax Product) do XYZ taxes?
Me: I'm sorry sir, I have no idea, I'm in the system support group. We assist with installation and registration. Can I get you in contact with our usage group to answer that for you?
Customer: No, they just transferred me to you, saying you need to answer that. Get me to Sales.
Me: Yes sir. (I check the call transfer record - it's blank, meaning he called in to the Support Number and was never transferred. Further, there are no recorded calls for him since July.)
Sales (after I explain the situation): So you want me to tell him the same thing you told him, because he thinks it'll be more official?
Me: Yup.

Sigh.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Me: Hi, thank you for calling System Support, this is Me, how can I help you?
Customer: Yeah, does your (Tax Product) do XYZ taxes?
Me: I'm sorry sir, I have no idea, I'm in the system support group. We assist with installation and registration. Can I get you in contact with our usage group to answer that for you?
Customer: No, they just transferred me to you, saying you need to answer that. Get me to Sales.
Me: Yes sir. (I check the call transfer record - it's blank, meaning he called in to the Support Number and was never transferred. Further, there are no recorded calls for him since July.)
Sales (after I explain the situation): So you want me to tell him the same thing you told him, because he thinks it'll be more official?
Me: Yup.

Sigh.

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HAHA. I used to get the reverse thing from sales people all the time. They could point out on the brochures exactly what a product could or couldn't do, but it was only "official" if it came from the I.T. Guys.

Me: Hi, thank you for calling (company) System Support, how can I help you?
Customer (with really thick accent): Yes, I need help with A pile of x360
Me: Excuse me? I'm sorry I didn't understand that. Help with what?
Customer: A tile for XP 360.
Me: I'm sorry sir, I'm not understanding what you're looking for. I support (software) for (company.)
Customer: But Meanwhile Franklin 360 is your company's software!
Me: I'm sorry sir, I can't understand the name of the software you're saying. Could you please spell it?
Customer ends up spelling "Agile T360".
Me: Um, sorry sir, but no, we support (product type) (brand name) (software name). I'm looking through the list of products and even on our website I cannot find the software you're referring to. (Heck I even googled it and can't find what he's talking about)
Customer: Oh well maybe I'll find out more about the software and call back.

The thing that bugs me about this, is that to get through our phone menus, it says the name of company a good 3 times, the brand every single time a product is mentioned, and oh yeah even the pre-hold pre-queue message has it. How can you get that far and NOT realize you've got the wrong freaking number?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Me: Hi, thank you for calling (company) System Support, how can I help you?
Customer (with really thick accent): Yes, I need help with A pile of x360
Me: Excuse me? I'm sorry I didn't understand that. Help with what?
Customer: A tile for XP 360.
Me: I'm sorry sir, I'm not understanding what you're looking for. I support (software) for (company.)
Customer: But Meanwhile Franklin 360 is your company's software!
Me: I'm sorry sir, I can't understand the name of the software you're saying. Could you please spell it?
Customer ends up spelling "Agile T360".
Me: Um, sorry sir, but no, we support (product type) (brand name) (software name). I'm looking through the list of products and even on our website I cannot find the software you're referring to. (Heck I even googled it and can't find what he's talking about)
Customer: Oh well maybe I'll find out more about the software and call back.

The thing that bugs me about this, is that to get through our phone menus, it says the name of company a good 3 times, the brand every single time a product is mentioned, and oh yeah even the pre-hold pre-queue message has it. How can you get that far and NOT realize you've got the wrong freaking number?

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This happens at Comcast, people call complaining about something and then complain more that you cant find their account. and since Comcast covers much of NJ but so does Cablevision people who are not even in a comcast service area still call them.

Heh here's a similar situation I overhear from our support guys:

Client: OMFG I absolutely hosed my SQL Server when I was dicking around with Google Pacman overnight last night. Wait, I know! I have a service contract with the company Grindel's at for their product, and their product uses SQL Server. I'll call them and make them remote in and troubleshoot the issue!

Phone rep: *imagines solid iron asteroids crashing into whatever state the client's located in*

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charbok

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

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Why would you feel it is selfish on your part? You aren't the one that chose to save the $20/mo (or whatever), gambling that you wouldn't have any problems.

Yeah, you don't need to feel bad about that. I kind of enjoyed it when I was doing front line support for business services internet/voice. When residential video outages happened people would try to game the phone system by choosing business instead of residential and we'd shrug and transfer them back to the starting point. Average handle times went down.

HA, I had one a few months ago, lady calls up - "hi I'm trying to find some information on grants."

Uh OH - why the hell you talking to me?

"Oh, well isn't this the City office?" -- No this is the County office, specifically the Computer department in the County offices.

"well, can you tell me?" -- No.

"well, who do I need to talk to?" -- How the hell should I know?

"Well, what can you do to help me?" -- I can hang up and stop wasting your time on this Phone call.



(OK, I was a little more polite then that -- but it amounted to the same thing.)

oops, proofreading for the Win:

uh-oh = uhm - OK.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eremius

Why would you feel it is selfish on your part? You aren't the one that chose to save the $20/mo (or whatever), gambling that you wouldn't have any problems.

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Twenty? Try $200/month or more.

I've seen "business class" going for as high as $1500 a month depending on the area and how much line has to be run in for "guaranteed' service speeds and 24/7 support on a single-customer tap as opposed to a standard residential tap.

I've certainly never seen the option available for under 3 times the $60/month I pay for my residential cable internet. That's why people still try to sneak by with residential for home businesses, it's not a tiny difference in the bill.

Totally sucks for the phone support techs though, people get unreasonable FAST when it comes to their internet access.

That's when techs burn out or learn to tell the cheapskates to talk to sales to sign a contract to upgrade to business class service.

That cuts two ways, I remember when they tried to force you to buy an expensive business tier if you were planning on running ANYTHING more complicated than a direct modem connection to a single computer, no routers or switches or firewalls allowed, even in the bottom business class tiers routers/gateways weren't allowed, they would just assign you five hard IP addresses instead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charbok

The company I work has two categories of DSL circuits: Residential and Business class. Functionally, they're usually identical, with some obvious exceptions. However, we charge a premium for full, 24/7 support of a business class line. Residential customers get less support, but also have reduced rates.

Is it selfish that I get irritated when a customer is paying for residential service, but demands business level support just because they're running some fly-by-night business from their house? I field a call like that at least once a day, and it drives me batty. I may not like having to tell a customer I can't fix their DSL them simply because my job says so, but I have to follow SOP. That SOP says you can't make any money from your business until Monday, because you chose the cheaper route and didn't pay for the extra support contract.

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those calls come into anyone in an ISP that services people and businesses. even worse is when someone claims they are loosing thousands of dollars because its down. yet because all calls are recorded you cant respond "well then if you are making thousands in these few hours you could afford our business class service ya cheapskate"

Customer Tech: We installed NewlyLicensedProduct_005. Now we get all these error messages that say "you do not have permissions" or "access denied."
Me: Verify Full Control permissions on Program_Folder_001
Tech: They're not Full Control
Me: Set them
Tech: OK
Tech: Still getting those errors. Remotely connect and look at my computer.
Me: (It's now 30 minutes into the call. I have 30 minutes left on my shift. I Remotely connect and sees that not all of the right users/groups have FC permissions on Program_Folder_001, so I set them with Tech's permission. Same errors. Weird.) Are there any locked files on the server?
Tech: How do I check?
Me: ... Could you RDP into the server please? (he does, I check, no locked files. Even on the server, getting "access denied" errors.)
Tech: You want me to reboot the server? (It's now an hour into the call. I should have left 2 minutes ago.)
Me: ... (dumbfounded. Out of dozens of calls this guy has placed in the last 2 years, this is the smartest fucking thing he's ever said.) Yes.
Tech (5 minutes later) OK server's rebooted
Me: (continues to try to troubleshoot -same problems. Can't even view basic text files in the folders - getting access denied.)
Me: Let's try something else. (I rename Program_Folder_001 to Program_Folder_OLD, reinstall, and HFS everything works! So then I try to copy data files from the old install to the new one and get "access denied." EVEN ON A FOLDER COPY.)
Me: It seems you have some kind of file corruption, sector corruption, or something going on with these prior folders. You need to restore from your last known good backup and make sure everything works, because I can't access at least half of your data.
Tech: Why?
Me: *facepalm* (90 minutes...)
Tech: What caused this? The new product install?
Me: (wants to say, NO YOU MORON but I'm nice and start spouting scenarios.)
Tech: So how do I fix it?
Me: spends the next 20+ minutes explaining how he should go about creating a new, unique folder, restoring the Program_Folder_001 to that location, etc etc
Tech: Why?
Me: Look, you need to talk to your IT director, because there's nothing more I can do. I have proved it's not the programs, and that there's something going on with the server. This is beyond what I can fix.

And the capper is, as I signed off with my departmental policy signoff "Thanks and have a good night Tech," I hear him mutter, "yeah thanks asshole."
Thanks for wasting my 2 hours and 18 seconds.

I just took this call. Mind blowing.

Customer: Hi, I sent in a DNS change request yesterday and was looking for an update. I haven't heard anything back.

Me: No problem, did you get an auto-reply? It'll have the ticket number on it and I can easily look it up.

Customer: No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

Me: (I grab the customer's info and try to search for his ticket manually). While I'm finding the ticket, can you explain what kind of DNS change you need?

The customer rattles off, with alarming amounts of technical expertise, what basically amounts to a simple A record change. This guy is smart. I think he likes to show it off, but that's okay; I'll take smart customers who know precisely what they need/want over the 'Ummmm.... uhhhh..." customers any day.

Me: Okay, the last ticket I see from you guys is a month old. We never saw any DNS change request. Can you confirm where you sent it to?

Customer: Sure. www.support@[ourdomain].com.

Me: Wait... www?

Customer: Yeah. Your support e-mail address doesn't use www?

I know it happens to all of us, but it's hilarious how someone can be so technically minded, yet do dumb things like try to append the World Wide Web to an e-mail address.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charbok

I just took this call. Mind blowing.

Customer: Hi, I sent in a DNS change request yesterday and was looking for an update. I haven't heard anything back.

Me: No problem, did you get an auto-reply? It'll have the ticket number on it and I can easily look it up.

Customer: No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

Me: (I grab the customer's info and try to search for his ticket manually). While I'm finding the ticket, can you explain what kind of DNS change you need?

The customer rattles off, with alarming amounts of technical expertise, what basically amounts to a simple A record change. This guy is smart. I think he likes to show it off, but that's okay; I'll take smart customers who know precisely what they need/want over the 'Ummmm.... uhhhh..." customers any day.

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It would be at this point I would furrow my brow. If someone starts spouting large amounts of "expertise" for a simple task (like an A record change) chances are they just know how to throw terms and don't really understand what they are saying.

Quote:

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Me: Okay, the last ticket I see from you guys is a month old. We never saw any DNS change request. Can you confirm where you sent it to?

Customer: Sure. www.support@[ourdomain].com.

Me: Wait... www?

Customer: Yeah. Your support e-mail address doesn't use www?

I know it happens to all of us, but it's hilarious how someone can be so technically minded, yet do dumb things like try to append the World Wide Web to an e-mail address.

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And there's the proof.

Quote:

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No, we didn't get any auto-reply.

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Where was the message from the Postmaster saying "INVALID".

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

Where was the message from the Postmaster saying "INVALID".

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My company automatically dumps those as spam.

Oh my fucking god... Shoot me.

"help our printer won't print a document, printed a different one, but when I try to print this one the Printer flashes some Red light".

Ok, and what's it say?

"Load legal paper into tray one, or select a different tray".

Ok, so you're trying to print a legal document in a printer that only has letter paper -- Either change your Document page setup to use letter or load legal paper into the printer.

"how do I do that?"

........

My paper size is A4 for text, A3 for tables and small drawing samples and A0 for drawings.
Since A2 up to A00 goes to the plotter, I expect my printer to know the difference between A3 and A4. And not to start messing them up, or even worse, come up with outdated primitive paperformats like Letter or Legal.

Quote:

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My paper size is A4 for text, A3 for tables and small drawing samples and A0 for drawings.
Since A2 up to A00 goes to the plotter, I expect my printer to know the difference between A3 and A4. And not to start messing them up, or even worse, come up with outdated primitive paperformats like Letter or Legal.

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So wait, it's the Computer's fault when You send your print job to the wrong tray?

Computers are very literal -- If you specify TRAY 2 -- it will attempt to print from Tray 2 regardless of what type of paper you have -- in fact at that point the Printer will flash up saying "hey dumbass -- Tray 2 was specified, but they also said to use a different size then what's loaded, can you load the correct size cause I don't have a robot arm to do it for you".

Garbage IN - Garbage Out, still applies.

Just show them how the single sheet feeder slash envelope feeder works and what the little icon that resembles a sheet of paper means and they will never have to worry again about which tray does what.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

Just show them how the single sheet feeder slash envelope feeder works and what the little icon that resembles a sheet of paper means and they will never have to worry again about which tray does what.

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Heh. I have yet to see a printer smaller than a Canon CLC 1180 that has a sheet feeder that works worth a damn. Usually the rubber on the rollers is so freaking dry that they either bind or sit idly in the feed tray.

http://www.split-second.ca/images/clc.jpg

Why do you keep your rubbers in the printer? That would seem to be highly inefficient unless you're getting freaky in the copier room on a regular basis.

It's a low-tech way to make porn though, always keep the copier running while using the platen as a sex swing.

By the way, I found this flip book in the Copier Room, it's apparently a biology primer....

Me: System Support, this is Me, how can I help you?
Other Rep: *thick accent* Yeah, hi Me, this is MoronRep, I have a customer for Product_You_Don't_Support_054, she needs your help logging in.
Me: *checks the call log, the customer was transferred from my coworker, to MoronRep, back to me* Well, I can't help her, she's using a product I'm not able to support
MoronRep: Well I can't help her, who do I get her to?
Me: I have no idea, have you tried asking your supervisor, or getting the customer's information so you can have the right group call her back?
MoronRep: I don't know what you mean, how do I do that? I don't know how to do that.
Me: ....


another call:

Me: *greeting*
Customer: Yeah Hi, I just talked to your SalesRep about your remote connection license, after I get that set up, how do I connect remotely?
Me: *checks the call transfer record, seeing which rep talked to the customer. it's not good* Well, do you have VPN, Remote Desktop, or some sort of Terminal Server set up?
Customer: Huh?
Me: ...

Problematic Co-worker: I need help with my new corporate laptop
Me: Uhoh *goes over to her desk*
Co-worker: *holds up an ethernet cable* Do I need to have this connected to my computer to use the wireless?

Customer: I need one of your lead techs to call me back ASAP.
Me: Okay *gets their info* What time zone are you in, so that we can get you a timely callback?
Customer: I'm in the office every day 8-5.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

Problematic Co-worker: I need help with my new corporate laptop
Me: Uhoh *goes over to her desk*
Co-worker: *holds up an ethernet cable* Do I need to have this connected to my computer to use the wireless?

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Answer: "GOOD GOD PLUG THAT IN BEFORE IT EXPLODES!"

An unplugged ethernet cable is leaking bandwidth all over the rug!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

An unplugged ethernet cable is leaking bandwidth all over the rug!

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You know, at the time of those coax ring networks, an unused end connector on an open end would mess up bandwidth.

That's why they sold those little terminator caps with the green wire running through the boot.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae

An unplugged ethernet cable is leaking bandwidth all over the rug!

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It will let the token out! No more token ring!

I had a rather fun one a couple weeks ago. Phone call out of a blue from a friend in the PhD program.

Friend: You got a minute? I know it's break, but I'm having some issues and was wondering if you could give me a hand.
Me: Uh, sure, I guess? No promises, I don't really have the mathematical background for your area of research.
Friend: Oh, no, nothing like that. I need to copy some files from a remote machine to my (department server) account.
Me: Uhh... okay. Where are they?
Friend: --rattles off a directory path and a server--
Me: That's one of ours (the department) isn't it? Should just be able to log in and copy to where ever you want, assuming the permissions are correct.
Friend: Okay. How do I do that?
Me: The command to copy is cp. Just specify the file source and destination.
Friend: It's telling me command not recognized.
Me: Uhh... what? That... that doesn't make sense.
Friend: Well, that's what it's telling me.
Me: Is it a windows box? Give me a second...
--I log in and no, it's a *nix box and cp is working fine--
Me: Uhh... it works fine for me. You're not doing something dumb like forgetting a space between the command and the parameters, are you?
Friend: No.
Me: Weird. Have you corrupted your path variable somehow?
Friend: My what?
Me: Nevermind. Try using scp. It's kinda dumb to use for essentially local copying, but whatever.
Friend: How do I use scp?
--Explanation of using scp--
Friend: Says it can't find it again.
Me: Read me the exact error message it's giving you.
Friend: Scp is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
Me: Batch file? What? You're not trying on your local machine, are you? You have ssh'd in, right?
Friend: Oh, no, do I have to do that?
Me: Yes, you have to log onto the server first.
Friend: Oh. How do I do that?
Me: Do you have an SSH client installed?
Friend: How do I know?
Me: Okay, so you don't. Head to the IT website and download one of the SSH clients, whatever one you use on your office computer and then it'll just be like connecting to linux. Give me a call when you got that done.
--About ten minutes later he calls back--
--Walk him through the copying process again--
Friend: They're not there. I can't find the files or the folders.
Me: What do you mean?
Friend: I'm looking on my C drive and I don't see the folder I made.
Me: Oh, you wanted the files from the remote machine onto your local one?
Friend: Yeah.
Me: ...Umm... Yeah, you're fucked then. Going to have to wait til your back on campus with a flash stick. Sorry 'bout that.
Friend: Are you sure? I could have sworn I've done something like this before.
Me: Yeah, positive. You probably did *nix to *nix. *nix to Windows is actually one of the hot topics of ongoing research of distributed systems, what with volunteer computing and all. They haven't quite figured out a reliable way to transfer between the two over networks. Something about endian and line terminators.
Friend: Alright, well, thanks anyway.

I got another call about two hours later from another friend who works helpdesk on campus chewing me out for being too lazy to walk him through the process.

I called Qwest tech support today, three times.... Synopses condensed/paraphrased for the sake of time and space.

Call #1
"I can't get the Quick Care client to detect my modem."

"Blah blah it should blah blah I bet you just love my indecipherable accent blah..."

"Well, it doesn't."

"Quick care doesn't have anything to do with your modem, it is antivirus." (Yes it does, and no it isn't.)

"Yes it does, it is a suite of diagnostic tools to help me fix my connection. It attempts to detect the modem for this purpose. Modem PK5000 is on the list, I have PK5000Z. Could that be the issue?"

"Blah blah PK5000Z is the same as PK5000, reinstall Quick Care blah blah."

I uninstall/reinstall Quick Care, still no modem detection.
Call#2
"I can't get the Quick Care client to detect my modem. I called a few minutes ago, was told to reinstall, I did, no luck."

"Is your connection working, can you get online?"

"Yes. I just can't get Quick Care to detect my modem.

"Ok, blah blah looks like your modem's fine blah blah if you have problems with your modem you can call tech support." (I was on the phone to tech support, it was supposedly a tech support representative telling me this.)

"Well, Quick Care is supposed to help me diagnose and fix connection problems. I just need to get it to detect my modem."

"Ok right now it looks like your connection is working"

"Yes, it is. Its working great. I would just like to get Quick Care to detect the modem, so if it stops working great, I can use Quick Care to help me fix the problem."

"Quick Care is not part of the modem blah blah it is security software for your computer." (No, it isn't.)

"I understand it is not a part of the modem. It is a software package of programs to help me diagnose and fix connection problems. It needs to detect the modem to be able to do this. I just need to get it to detect the modem."

"Ok Quick Care is not part of the modem blah blah. If your modem is working you can just disable it blah blah. I bet you would have an easier time understanding a blindfolded Stephen Hawking on quaaludes than deciphering my fucked up accent blah."

"I don't think you're comprehending anything I've said. I'm going to call back and get another representative."

Call#3
"I can't get the Quick Care client to detect my modem."

"Blah blah this is what Mr. Magoo sounds like with a mouthfull of peanut butter blah."

"I just need to get Quick Care to detect my modem."
(Now entering Phonetic Mode, that you may enjoy the full impact of my wonderful tech support experience)

"Okeh ai wi luke ansi eef quikaar kahn deetek yuir mode-eh."
(15 minutes later)
"Okeh eet luke lai rai nau quikaar doze-in deetek pih-keh-fi'tousan-zee a' dis taim"

OMG WHY DID THE FIRST TWO NOT ONLY NOT REALIZE WTF QUICK CARE WAS AT ALL, BUT THEY WERE NOT BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT THE DAMN PROGRAM DOESN'T WORK WITH MY NEWER MODEM YET?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!11!!ONEONEONE!!!111!

AND OMG i DON'T THINK THE FILIPINOS AND INDIANS WOULD EVER ACCEPT HAVING TO DEAL WITH CALLING TECH SUPPORT LOCATED IN DEEP RURAL ALABAMA AND HAVING TO DECIPHER THAT HELLIFIED ACCENT!!!!!!!!!!!1!1!!!1!!!1!!!ONEONEONE11!!!!1!!

Quote:

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Re: Tales from Techsupport

I called Qwest tech support today, three times.... Synopses condensed/paraphrased for the sake of time and space.

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HEY!

Wrong thread usage there buddy -- This is "From" tech support... It's the place for US to bitch about YOU. Not YOU to bitch about US. Go get your own thread. Oh, and smack yourself in the face with a wet fish for me.