Re: Tales from Techsupport
Manager sends an email indicating that 2 people out of a five person department (my group) are out of office.
I get an IM from someone on the other half of the Support department complaining, "oh sure, he sends an email when you've got two people out, but not when we have one person out."
Me: But you have 8 people in your department. We have five
Other: No, we have four
Me: lists the eight people I know take calls
Other: Unfortunately not. Three of the last four complained about receiving too many of our calls and were removed from our queue. The last, even though he trained and took a handful of calls, ended up being assigned to a completely separate support department.
Me: When was this!?
Other: November
Nice communication huh. Shame there's no way to instantaneously let people know about changes like this.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Got an email today from our controller asking about an invoice that made its way to him.
Apparently "Yellow Pages"
-faxed us a bill for services that included Facebook & Twitter
-wanted the payment mailed to Bulgaria
From reading the email chain the invoice had made its way through most of the on site c-levels.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Apparently "Yellow Pages"
-faxed us a bill for services that included Facebook & Twitter
-wanted the payment mailed to Bulgaria
Sounds legit...
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Background: My company has an outlet sale in the spring for two weekends every year. I use a wireless bridge to run the credit card scanner.
As the outlet store is done for this year, the controller places this ticket:
Quote:
Please remove the wireless bridge that was being used in the lunchroom at the cashier check out area.
Please keep for next year.
No shit, that's an awesome idea! I thought I would just replace it every year.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Eremius
Background: My company has an outlet sale in the spring for two weekends every year. I use a wireless bridge to run the credit card scanner.
As the outlet store is done for this year, the controller places this ticket:
No shit, that's an awesome idea! I thought I would just replace it every year.
"Request Denied."
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Please resubmit request in 30 days for further denial.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
I receive an e-mail:
Quote:
When are you going to get this software upgrade installed so I can do training?
(Machine name below in a previous e-mail)
I figure "heck, I'm already doing it on a dozen other computers right now, what's one more?"
So I hit up mstsc and open a terminal session.
Hrm. Someone else is already logged into this machine.
I reply to the e-mail:
Quote:
Someone is currently logged into that machine
I receive a reply:
Quote:
Can you try again? I just shut it down
Just in case the person didn't mean shut down, I try to log in.
Nope.
Ping.
Nope.
*sigh*
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merrick ap'Milandra
I receive an e-mail:
I figure "heck, I'm already doing it on a dozen other computers right now, what's one more?"
So I hit up mstsc and open a terminal session.
Hrm. Someone else is already logged into this machine.
I reply to the e-mail:
I receive a reply:
Just in case the person didn't mean shut down, I try to log in.
Nope.
Ping.
Nope.
*sigh*
We get this so often - please log off so that I can remote on to do x/y/z . Um - did you just shut down? /headslap
I'm surprised there isn't a forehead shaped dent in my desk from the number of FFS moments caused either by the users or our first line team.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
It literally says "Log Off", "Restart" and "Shut Down". What the holy fuck is the malfunction?
Why yes, I do have this issue with my users as well, why do you ask?
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Apparently, keeping over 100 tickets open, when they share 5-6 common issues, and development has yet to fix them, is frowned upon.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mileron
Apparently, keeping over 100 tickets open, when they share 5-6 common issues, and development has yet to fix them, is frowned upon.
HAHAHAHA
So we have a citrix farm of several dozen citrix servers, but it's not being used for direct desktop access, it's only streamed apps.
Two of the apps freeze/hang ALL THE TIME and are absolutely, totally, and completely business critical. (over 1,000 people use them all day long)
When this happens, it freezes their entire citrix session and lose any work they had in all apps IF they kill the hung app.
We taught them to call the helpdesk when it happens and have their app session for the hung app reset in citrix. This causes them to lose all unsaved work from the one hung app, but not anything else.
Obviously, far and away our most important sets of tickets, and if the user selected the right options (by putting in their OWN ticket instead of phoning) or if the person who answered the phone selected the right options in the ticketing system, it'd immediately route the ticket to the teams for those two applications, even if the helpdesk resolved it by resetting the session.
So we realized, with a powershell script and some API functionality, we can allow a user to reset their own session for these apps from the ticketing system, thus cutting down MASSIVELY on the number of incoming phone calls and "help, I can't work" tickets.
The automated script still creates a ticket, but it sits in the general queue (helpdesk) and the script checks after 10 seconds to see if the user still has an active session in the app in question, then sets the ticket to "solved" if the session was cleared.
Tickets sit in "solved" for 48 business hours, so basically 6 business days. (someone MEANT 48 hours, but won't change it back) before they automatically flip to closed via the ticketing system.
This means hundreds upon hundreds of tickets (because the apps hang several times a day for everyone) just sitting in the helpdesk queue.
So what does the helpdesk start doing?
They fill out the rest of the information on the solved tickets.
This auto-routes them to the application team's queue.
HO.
LEE.
SHIT.
The fucking RAGE from these people when the tickets suddenly clog up THEIR queue instead of clogging up the helpdesk queue.
They went ALL THE FUCKING WAY UP TO THE CTO to bitch (because it was fucking with THEIR numbers, even though it's THEIR APPS that are busted) and the helpdesk is ordered to NOT ASSIGN THE TICKETS TO THE PROPER TEAM WHEN THEY"RE ALREADY SOLVED. (Because who the FUCK wants accurate stats on their own applications, right? Someone might wonder why this has been going on for half a decade and they haven't fixed it yet! CAN'T FUCKING HAVE THAT!)
Okay, fine, it came down from the top, so the helpdesk stops filling in the information that automatically assigns via the ticketing system.
They just start manually closing the tickets, then they don't show up in the "everything that's not closed" queue.
Now the MIS starts bitching because the helpdesk ticket numbers are fucked, showing massive numbers of tickets MANUALLY closed, each one generating an e-mail. (whereas the automated process does not do that)
So now the order is "FUCKING SUCK IT UP AND DON'T TOUCH THE AUTOMATED TICKETS".
Not "adjust the automated system so that it doesn't impact numbers", not "turn off e-mail notifications for manually closed tickets with the subject line of the automated tickets (which is the same EVERY TIME), NOT EVEN "Fix the metrics for the application team to only count human-handled tickets in the reporting."
Nope.
SUFFER, HELPDESK.
AND DON'T YOU DARE MISS ANY PEOPLE TICKETS IN THE FLOOD OF HUNDREDS OF SPAMMED AUTOMATED TICKETS.
STUPID BUREAUCRACY IS STUPID.
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Re: Tales from Techsupport
Customer has two installs of the program.
One is used firm-wide.
One is installed only for a single user who uses it to perform the tax returns for the firm partners.
The former goes missing.
I help the tech go through the restoration and reactivation process.
He calls me up hours later.
The second one went missing too.
Attachment 4614
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mileron
LOL!
Seriously though, did they just lose their documentation? Do they uninstall the software when it's not in use?
What is that licensing scheme? Can the firm-wide one be used by only one user at a time?
There is some special brand of idiocy at work with that client of yours.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merrick ap'Milandra
Seriously though, did they just lose their documentation? Do they uninstall the software when it's not in use?
My best guess is too many hands in the cookie jar. Someone somewhere else f'ed up.
Quote:
What is that licensing scheme? Can the firm-wide one be used by only one user at a time?
Concurrent user; 1 license = 1 user but can put 100 shortcuts on peoples' desktops.
Quote:
There is some special brand of idiocy at work with that client of yours.
True true.
I don't know if it was moved (but a search for some unique files in the program folder structure turned up nothing) but you would think that, if someone at a user-level were to move or delete the whole folder, they'd wonder where 9GB of files and programs were going...
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mileron
you would think that, if someone at a user-level were to move or delete the whole folder, they'd wonder where 9GB of files and programs were going...
Nah.
We have an old application running which needs a specific, hard-coded, directory for dumping parsed files after the parse is done.
Business critical and whatnot. Should have been replaced years ago, got caught between systems upgrades because "It still works, and will be implemented in phase BFG instead!".
Few weeks back, I get a call:
Manager (awesome person, really has her shit together. If you get one of these, HANG ON TO THEM!): "Application XYZ stopped working!".
Me: "Screenshot the error message, send it to me".
Message is something akin to "Missing file/directory bla bla bla help me I can't run argh splat goodbye cruel world".
I go to her desk, proceed to the working directory...
... which is missing.
Me: "Erm, the application needs that directory to run, and it's not there."
Manager: "No-one is supposed to mess with ANYTHING in this directory, it's been stated time and time again!".
We search for a specific log-file entry that's pretty unique to the application - and BINGO - there's the entire working directory. In pristine condition.
But it's in a completely different sub-directory that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the application. One person is responsible for the folder that we found it in, since it's for some very specific tasks.
One. Person.
That person: "Me?!? I didn't move any directory!".
Me: "But I can see N files right here with the same move time, all related to the tasks in this directory".
That person: "That is correct, but I'm telling you that I didn't move that directory".
Said directory contains a MASSIVE amount of files. Moving it back to the correct position took 20+ minutes.
The proper files, combined, were under 3 MB.
So, no, some people do not get puzzled when a simple CTRL-X CTRL-V (probably Right-click, move files in this scenario) that should have taken a few seconds suddenly goes on for 20+ minutes.
You give some users far, far too much benefit of the doubt :grinyes:
Re: Tales from Techsupport
So a coworker got a new unused Kindle off her neighbour who received it as a birthday present a while ago. She got two so she sold one to my coworker.
Problem: the thing won't register. User id / pw unknown. Pkease try again.
Her or my login, same problem.
After an hour I gave up. She ordered one off amazon right then because she's going on a trip this weekend and wants it with her.
Not ready to give up I contact customer support. The person asks me for the serial number which I give her.
The next question: "where did you get that kindle, mr. Ronaan?"
Uh oh.
Thus device has been flagged as lost/stolen and only the original account can ask for it to be unlocked.
The guy who bought it for the neighbour "got it off the internet" ...
I did not expect that but now it's sort of funny. Except my amazon account is probably flagged now for trying to register a stolen kindle and everything will be 20% more expensive and take twice as long to arrive.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ronaan
So a coworker got a new unused Kindle off her neighbour who received it as a birthday present a while ago. She got two so she sold one to my coworker.
Problem: the thing won't register. User id / pw unknown. Pkease try again.
Her or my login, same problem.
After an hour I gave up. She ordered one off amazon right then because she's going on a trip this weekend and wants it with her.
Not ready to give up I contact customer support. The person asks me for the serial number which I give her.
The next question: "where did you get that kindle, mr. Ronaan?"
Uh oh.
Thus device has been flagged as lost/stolen and only the original account can ask for it to be unlocked.
The guy who bought it for the neighbour "got it off the internet" ...
I did not expect that but now it's sort of funny. Except my amazon account is probably flagged now for trying to register a stolen kindle and everything will be 20% more expensive and take twice as long to arrive.
I had the same issue with my original Kindle Fire (before the HD).
A coworker of mine bought it to read textbooks with for school and decided he HATED it.
He had a few minor scratches on the screen and the case was a bit bent, so we negotiated what HE thought was a fair price of $120 instead of the $199 he originally paid.
He reset it (so it wouldn't have his gmail on it, or whatever), but forgot to disassociate it with his account on the WEBSITE side.
It turns out that this is a pretty common scam when done on purpose, if search results say anything.
Amazon support should be able to reach out to the original owner and figure out the circumstances of how it was reported stolen/lost.
Amazon support is also REALLY SUPER GREAT (in the US at least) when you have an issue.
They'd rather lose a few dollars than lose your business permanently, so if you order from them regularly? You're probably going to be fine, it just might take a while to get it resolved. (And I can't speak to German (You're in germany, right?) amazon support.
Also, if you ARE in germany, you're in a country that has some of the BEST laws for consumer protection on the planet, if my german friends are to be believed.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Yeah germany here, and I've had nothing but great experiences with amazon customer support.
I didn't think of asking them to contact the original owner, at that point I just wanted to get rid of the thing.
Good to know for future reference though.
Although in my coworker's case it was said to have never been used before. I'll ask her if the box was sealed when she got it (they still had it in that little plastic bag too, looked pretty fresh.
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Oh and consumer protection laws don't go very far if it's a sale between two consumers, which I assume it was. Probably ebay. I'll try and dig a bit.
1 Attachment(s)
Re: Tales from Techsupport
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawlin
Nah.
We have an old application running which needs a specific, hard-coded, directory for dumping parsed files after the parse is done.
Hard-coded directories in compiled windows software on windows machines make me cry.
At LEAST have your installer set an environment variable so it can be pathed dynamically?
That amount of shit that still sits in C:\%username%\AppData\Local\Temp\stuffgoeshere drives me NUTS, because they could just say %temp% and you could remap THAT to anywhere, but NoOoOOoOoOoOoooOoO...we're juniper and we have to HARD CODE OUR VPN SOFTWARE TO THE TEMP PATH BY NAME, NOT BY FUCKING VARIABLE.
OR WE'RE THE FIREFOX WEB INSTALLER INSTEAD OF THE FULL DOWNLOAD AND WE HAVE TO....repeat ad nauseum.
Because in the age of cryptoviruses EVERYONE is just letting their group policy go STRAIGHT TO FUCKING TEMP AND EXECUTE.
And it would be SOOO IMPOSSIBLE to add %TastyDanish% as an environment variable and path it to some commonly writable but not executable directory. OR BETTER YET, HAVE THE INSTALLING USER PICK A LOCATION UNTIL ONE DOESN'T FAIL, THEN INCLUDE A BUTTON THAT SAYS "READ YOUR PARSE FILES WHERE YOU PUT THEM BEFORE CALLING SUPPORT, PLEASE" (Not yelling at you, just software developers who have ZERO understanding of GPO).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawlin
Business critical and whatnot. Should have been replaced years ago, got caught between systems upgrades because "It still works, and will be implemented in phase BFG instead!".
Story of my life.
The company I work for is still using a PuTTY application that LOOKS to be remoting into an AS/400, but requires both UNIX access, windows server print access, and some level of interoperability on the Citrix farm that I don't even understand because it reminds me of Dos 3.2, but it's business critical and it's been due for an upgrade for well over a decade.
User has a problem? We're hitting CUPS on UNIX on one team, Some kind of Larry Ellison database, creating special windows printers that can ONLY be used for this because they require as much babysitting as manually flipping dip switches to select an IRQ, and then setting permissions so that ONLY the users who use this app can even SEE the printers, lest someone print something to one and jam up the spooler service.
Supremely antiquated shit is for the birds, but "business critical, it'd take longer to upgrade and port than it would to....WHAT, SPEND A DECADE AND A HALF ON SOMETHING THAT BARELY WORKS?!?!?!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawlin
Few weeks back, I get a call:
Manager (awesome person, really has her shit together. If you get one of these, HANG ON TO THEM!): "Application XYZ stopped working!".
Me: "Screenshot the error message, send it to me".
Message is something akin to "Missing file/directory bla bla bla help me I can't run argh splat goodbye cruel world".
I go to her desk, proceed to the working directory...
... which is missing.
Me: "Erm, the application needs that directory to run, and it's not there."
Manager: "No-one is supposed to mess with ANYTHING in this directory, it's been stated time and time again!".
We search for a specific log-file entry that's pretty unique to the application - and BINGO - there's the entire working directory. In pristine condition.
But it's in a completely different sub-directory that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the application. One person is responsible for the folder that we found it in, since it's for some very specific tasks.
One. Person.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The old accidental left-click and drag with move as a default option instead of copy.
That happened to an entire accounting/billing directory for a company I worked at once.
The sheer number of calls that came in because it was end-of-month was UNHOLY.
EVERYONE was processing invoices, and suddenly...EXCEL AND APPLICATION ERRORS EVERYWHERE!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Dawlin
That person: "Me?!? I didn't move any directory!".
Me: "But I can see N files right here with the same move time, all related to the tasks in this directory".
That person: "That is correct, but I'm telling you that I didn't move that directory".
Said directory contains a MASSIVE amount of files. Moving it back to the correct position took 20+ minutes.
The proper files, combined, were under 3 MB.
So, no, some people do not get puzzled when a simple CTRL-X CTRL-V (probably Right-click, move files in this scenario) that should have taken a few seconds suddenly goes on for 20+ minutes.
You give some users far, far too much benefit of the doubt :grinyes:
Yeah, I finally got our Active Directory team at another job to re-evaluate who had folder permissions and ensure noone could "Apply to all subfolders and files" unless they were a domain admin on a separate domain admin account from their user account for JUST that reason.
Anyone could just drag files off and break applications.
And did, regularly.
Nice find and fix.
Congratulations, you have earned an achievement.
Attachment 4626
