Tales from Techsupport

And another one.
As part of my duties as "senior" I have been writing a lot of technical documentation for what I support.
And I've been providing them to tech people because in the last few months tech people have become really stupid.

A long time customer (pre-2004) is finally moving off their old 2000 server and jumping right to 2012.
I told the tech that he MUST the programs.
I sent him documentation.
And over a half dozen emails per day for the last week, with the most basic questions which were answered in that documentation.

Spoiler for this-is-me:

Attachment 4304

I tell the customer's sales rep that I've been handholding them for the better part of two weeks.
Her response:
"So are you saying that you are now qualified to have children or run a daycare?"
Me: I've been doing tech support since 1987.
Her: That's a yes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mileron

I told the tech that he MUST the programs.

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Must "reinstall".

Yay words

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FilanFyretracker

I bet that is mostly due to the shitload of small items. I wonder if they were just backing up if zipping the items would have been better because then it would be one big file.

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Yeah, basically, for every single file, it copies the bytes, then goes back and checks them to make sure they all made it. Possibly twice (once for TCP, once for file CRC Checksum in Windows).

That's why file copies always get to 99% or 100% and stall out for a while longer.

Simply zipping won't do it either, most things can read inside of plain zip files these days.

So I'm sure folks have seen the news that Pope Francis will be in Philadelphia at the end of September.

My office director sent an email out about 35 minutes ago indicating that our building will be closed from September 24th through the 28th.

Within 45 seconds I started to get emails.

Coworker #1: Does this mean I won't be able to work from home?
Me: Why would it mean you would not be able to?
#1: Because the office is closing.
Me: It's no different than when snow closed the office. You could work from home then, couldn't you?
#1: Yes
Me: Same thing.
#1: But how will everything work if the power is off in the building?
Me: I'm sorry, what?
#1: If they close the building, won't the power be off?
Me: ... No ...

#2: Will email still work?
Me: Yes, why wouldn't it?
#2: Because the office will be closed.
Me: Why would that matter?
#2: Won't the email stop delivering since we're not allowed to go into the office?
Me: ... No ...

#3: What will happen to my phone?
Me: With regards to what?
#3: What if it rings in the office? How will I get my calls?
Me: You were provided with instructions on how to forward it to your home phone.
#3: But I don't want to put my home phone into this system.
Me: You can disable it when you get back into the office.
#3: But I don't want to get my calls at home.
Me: So wait til Tuesday to get the voicemails?
#3: But what if they're important?
Me: Hopefully the person trying to contact you has an alternate method with which to do so.
#3: Like what?
Me: Email?

Attachment 4305

Yea I am happy I do not have to go over any bridges that day hopefully. Philly is going to be a fuckign mess.

https://flic.kr/p/wJgs49

Why we don't do "off-hours" friends tech support.

Tell your friend I charge $1500/hr with a two hour minimum paid up front.

Okay, so I heard this one from a 60+ coworker who is due to retire in a year.

I'm still not sure if he was serious about this happening, but he relayed the following:

Back a number of years ago, windows 2000 era, he had just gotten out of Novell, and the receptionist had computer trouble.

There was a team in charge of group policy, so computers locked after x minutes.

So he goes to the front desk with her and she needs to unlock her computer.

He asks her to do so.

She types her password.

He says he sees:

************************************************** ******

to excessive length.

At this point, He's curious so he asks her "Why is your password so long?"

She says: "It's SleepyDopeyDocSneezyGrumpyHappyBashfulBoise" because you guys say my password has to have seven characters and a capital".

Normally I would consider that level of anecdote to be complete bullshit, but I *have* actually heard people refer to cd trays as cupholders and listened to support call recordings where little old ladies put their mouse on the floor, pumped it like an old treadle sewing machine and subsequently called support because their computer won't "go fast".

Stupidity is so unlimited that Skynet doesn't stand a chance if the internet is involved.

recordings, plural. There were a grand total of two.

Sadly, I was not allowed to keep them (all recordings are property of other people I was working for. Yay go legal department). They were almost five years apart, but...wow.

Oh, and this fucking gem.

The person mentioned in post #1218 in this thread decided to do a FULL audit of our ticketing system and report on all tickets older than a certain period of time.

Picture what a ticketing system looks like when 1500 or so people are putting in tickets of varying priorities all day long every day.
It's not pretty when things get counted out, but tickets get priority assignments and are subject to service level agreements for a reason.

So this person does an audit, and digs up ALL of the "stale" tickets for every internal department. (I use quotes because the metric was arbitrary, not something defined by any manner of process)

Said person then e-mails ALL of the VP's, calling them out based on their team's outstanding ticket count.

Then said person calls a meeting and shoves everyone (including said person's self) in a room with the fucking CIO to ask them to explain why there are so many outstanding tickets. (Not even REMOTELY said person's jurisdiction.)

This causes a right fucking shitstorm of internal politics.

VP's bearing down on department heads, department heads bearing down on managers, managers bearing down on team leads, and then someone on one of those teams (who is a GREAT person and highly intelligent, generally) asks our dispatcher (who relayed this to me):

"We seem to have a lot of tickets in our team's queue from 2014. How did those get there?"

I resisted the urge to say many of the following things:

"You see that date field? That's when someone put in the ticket. It's been there ever since"

"You do know there's a search feature, right?" (with an lmgtfy link to the ticketing system's knowledge base)

"Well, when a mommy ticketing system and a daddy ticketing system love each other VERY VERY MUCH...."

and

"They say moss doesn't grow on a rolling stone. Your team appears to work on the geological scale, so unless someone kicks something, it's unlikely to roll."

Tech 1 to tech 2
"how do I?"

Tech 2: I don't know, ask melcar.

Tech1: but I just want to know.

Tech2: I don't know, you'll have to talk to melcar.


Melcar: It's in the email I sent you last week that you didn't read. fuckhead.

Tech1: I don't like asking melcar.

Melcar: That's because you should already know the answer because I told it to you last week.



---- Tech1 has been with us for well over a year; and STILL has no concept of where anybody is. Send him on a job and it's "Where are they located". draw yourself a fucking map.

Tech1: Couldn't do XXXX because YYYYY.

Really? That's the exact error it gave you?

Tech1: "I didn't memorize the error".

Obviously - didn't even read it. because that's not what it said.

WTF!!!! Error messages mean things?!??!!?

Quote:

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Error messages mean things?!??!!?

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I don't know... I didn't memorize it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

I don't know... I didn't memorize it.

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If only most of us carried around cameras that fit in our pockets...

Quote:

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If only most of us carried around cameras that fit in our pockets...

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Someday some genius will build one... Then it will be the golden age of tech support.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Melcar

---- Tech1 has been with us for well over a year; and STILL has no concept of where anybody is. Send him on a job and it's "Where are they located". draw yourself a fucking map.

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I've been with this company for almost a year and I only know where about 3/4 of the people in this building sit.

Granted, we have 230+ people in the building and that remaining 1/4 only needs help about once a year...

...oh yeah, and the teams are split up funny, so someone being on a team doesn't necessarily indicate where they sit.

Quote:

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I've been with this company for almost a year and I only know where about 3/4 of the people in this building sit.

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Ok, but this guy doesn't know where Departments are located.

Called my Helpless desk to work through a coworker's VPN cert issues.
Helpless Desk Rep: Hi, what is your problem?
Me: Hi I'm calling in reference to Document 60054, I got to step 7 but it's not reacting in the way the document indicates. I've searched on the error but nothing is coming up in the database, and it's not linked in the document.
HDR: Well sir, first if you (starts rattling off step 1)
Me: I already did step 1, and 2, all the way up to 7. How can I get past step 7?
HDR: Sir that's no tone to take, I'm just trying to help
Me: You're asking me to reinstall an expired certificate for which I no longer have the installation package for, as they are removed upon initial installation. How can I redo step 1?
HDR: Yes, well, please hold
Almost ten minutes later...
HDR: Yes, sir, please turn your attention to document 60105, this will fix your issue, I will now connect to your computer to make the changes.
Me: That's not necessary, I can do it
HDR: No sir, since you were unable to perform the steps I must do them for you
Me: I was unable to perform the steps that I didn't have?
HDR: Yes sir, that's correct
She logs into the computer (figure I'll make her "earn" her pay). I've got the second document up on the user's second screen.
It gives instructions to go to C:\USERS\userid\AppData\LocalLow\blah\blah\blah
The HDR keeps going Start - Run - C:\userid
"Windows cannot find C:\userid, please check spelling and try again"
She tried this four times.
I grab control of the computer, and type in %appdata%, which opens to C:\USERS\userid\Appdata\Roaming, so then she starts saying
HDR: Sir I cannot proceed with troubleshooting this issue as you appear to have made extensive changes to the APPDATA folder
Me: Say what? Click on the APPDATA folder at the top, THEN go into LocalLow
HDR: Sir how am I expected to know your custom setup?
Me: This is NOT a custom setup! This is default Windows 7 User Appdata folder structure!
HDR: As you claim, sir...