Tales from Techsupport

[Melcar]

So, one of my LUSERS brings me their laptop -- "it died on me".

Ok, when did it die?

"Oh, the first week in January."

huh -- you realize it's now like the 4th week in January?

-- "Yeah, died right at the beginning of a meeting".

Ok, well, we'll check it out.



There's a reason step #1 is ALWAYS check to make sure it's plugged in. Oh, and devices tend to just up and "die" when their BATTERIES RUN DEAD.

I hate my life... scratch that... I hate other peoples lives... Mine is good.

[Melcar]

I just thought of an EVEN better one from yesterday to share...

Better because this was a failure of another Tech:

Another luser had called, and was talking to one of our other techs - because the red light for her phone extension stays lit, even when it's hung up - she can pick up the phone, and still get dial tone, and still receive incoming phone calls.

(We have a Toshiba digital telephone system, with digital phones).

Anyways, other tech relays this to me -- My instant response is: Somebody else is using that phone line.

"Nope, nobody using phone line".

Ok - sure whatever, so I go upstairs, look at phone, ok sure "red light on intercom"... When you pick up the handset the next button up lights green... jeee... Somebody else is using your phone line.

Nope, nobody is using it.

"Oh yeah? Look over here, this desk -- this person sitting here on the phone, notice how her 4th button up is lit in Green? That means she's using YOUR phone line."

We've had this exact phone system in this Exact setup for 3 years, and a very similar one for the past 7 years prior to that...

HOW CAN YOU PEOPLE NOT KNOW THIS SHIT???????

Especially the other Tech - cause we answer each others phones down here all the time. If I pick up your line, it goes Green on my phone, RED on yours. Wow - rocket science...

Or is that Brain Surgery? whatever...

[Mileron]

Friday - user comes to me, "My mouse doesn't work." (This is the fourth time in 2 weeks. He's got his PC as far away from his mouse as possible under his desk.)
Me: Unplug the mouse again, and re-plug it.
He waddles off and comes back 2 minutes later. "Now my keyboard doesn't work."
Me: Did you plug it back in?
Him: Yes.
Me: *walks over to his desk. Finds the keyboard unplugged. Plug it back in. Bink-bing, ta dah.*

[Daxil Solshok]

I used to do tech support for Verizon Wireless. I once had an irate user call in about not being able to connect to the Internet or something. I quickly deduced that he was speaking of Verizon Online - a completely different company. Despite explaining that talking and yelling at me would be no different than talking with and yelling at a Boeing employee about a Microsoft problem. He stiill didnt get it! This motherfucker would not hang up. I even found Verizon Online's number for him. It took a good few minutes of the innate "I want to talk to the president of your company" idiocy that these typs pull to finally get him off the line. Yeah, so tech support makes you bitter. I no longer do that.

[Daxil Solshok]

On the flip side, I once had a user call in whispering. She had the sexiest little whisper and I couldn't figure out why she was whispering. She needed a password change she said. We needed the old password to do it. I tell her this and ask her why she's whispering. She says its because she's in a business meeting and then she gives me the password. Sadly, I forget exactly what it was, but it was something like "Blow Job." I changed the password and told her she could call back whenever she liked LOL

[Grindel]

I sit pretty near our support team. One of our agents was on the phone with a client. The client didn't understand how to do something in the application, so our agent emailed a script to run along with a screenshot of the tool to use to run the script. Customer calls back claiming the tool wasn't working. He'd click the textbox again and again and it wouldn't work. She connects to him using gotomeeting.com and views his desktop.

He's clicking on the fucking screenshot?!? The one embedded in the email??? Our target market consists of IT pros, A/V pros, and telecom pros. Small business owners. These things happen and you just have to wonder how much people fake their way through life.

[Alikat Astrae]

These things happen and you just have to wonder how much people fake their way through life.

A lot. Most people are so dumb that it seems miraculous that our society functions at all. It's as if all the direction comes from a few very active people and everyone else just provides the cash and warm bodies. Cat Herders.

[Ikeya]

Sometimes it goes the other way too! A tale from a friend, who works for a web development company that both designs web pages for clients and then offers continued maintenance and support on them:

It's right after the new year. Everyone has gone back to work. After about 10 AM, they start getting flooded with calls from customers. No one can log on to the websites they've bought from them. At first, it was being written off as users being dumb, and they try to walk them through the process of making sure they're allowing cookies and sessions and what-have-you. Still, no one can log in. Doesn't matter what browser. Doesn't matter what type of account. No one can log in. Finally, at about 2 PM, they decide that maybe the customers aren't at fault and they dive into the back end. Their first suspect is that maybe the database providers are down. Nope. Then maybe the user tables are corrupted. Nope. Maybe the web servers are not issuing sessions? Or dropping them randomly? For the entire day, they're fighting this issue. About an hour before the usual quitting time, someone finally notices something odd about the log-in code for one of the pages.

The cookie it sets is set to expire on Jan. 1, 2010. They go through the sites of everyone having this problem and on every single one of them, it's the same.

[Merkus]

Every couple years I get to trot out this old gem:

Behold, the Chronicles of George!

[Taziir]

Over the past few days I've been dealing with an abusive client that wanted to switch their account from accepting regular web and telephone payments across to recurring payments. No problem, I told him, we just need new details from your bank so you can continue to accept regular payments. No, he says, there is no new number. Just make the switch.

Taz: Fine, but you do realise you won't be able to take any new payments when I do this? (I.e. you business will fail because you can't bring new money in)
Idiot Trader: That's not what my bank told me, they said I can do both. Stop wasting my time and make the switch.
Taz: We will make the change, but it really will mean that you can't take new payments at all. Please speak to your bank again to confirm what they said.
Idiot Trader: You guys never know your shit, I trust my bank more than you. (Why, because I'm telling you something that could stop you going bankrupt?)
Taz: If you like I'll talk to your bank and have them clarify what they said to you.
Idiot Trader: No need, I already spoke to them. Make the damn switch.

I got rid of him at this point and called the bank.

Taz: This trader wants to double up payment types, please tell me you haven't changed how you do things after all these years.
Bank: He's nuts. Oh wait... (My heart sinks) ...seems we did give him both on one account.
Taz: Erm, what? (WTF, we've fired people for mistakes like that)
Bank: Ok, I put it right, he signed an agreement for recurring payments. I've removed the regular payments facility.
Taz: Great. Just so I'm clear on this, he's not authorised to take new payments anymore?
Bank: No, he can still take telephone payments. (I doubletake)
Taz: ...... Didn't you just said you removed it?
Bank: Yes I did. (I'm feeling like I don't want this conversation at this point)
Taz: So his number can only take recurring payments right?? How is he going to take new payments?
Bank: He can take both on the same account. (I think my ear drum just burst)
Taz: So which is it? Are you allowing his to do recurring and new payments on one number now? Why are we hearing about this first from your clients and why is this not coming through the regular channels?
Bank: Erm... He can't do it on both numbers. (it begins to dawn on me that the trader is not the only weak link)
Taz: And he'll have to sign a new agreement with you to do this? (So now I'm doing YOUR job too)
Bank: Yes he will.

I call the idiot trader back and let him know that he DOES need to get another number from the bank.
Idiot Trader: Well that's not what they told me. Thanks for nothing, you are the most obstructive person I've ever dealt with. You'll be hearing from our solicitors. (Hangs up.)

Whatever moron, it's not my problem you spoke to people who can't tell the difference between day and night. Next time you ask us to destroy your business, guess what, I'm going to follow your SIGNED instruction to the letter. Jackass.

[silverblaze]

I had a guy who dropped his unit off yesterday to another agent and wanted it to be repaired under warranty service because it wouldn't boot. The client paid to have his data backed up before we repaired the unit. No problems, so I go to open up the unit and take out the HDD to back it up since it won't even POST. As soon as I take out the HDD I noticed it was covered in red sticky liquid. Awesome, I sniffed to find it was wine. So I back the unit up and call the guy asking him to come pick up his laptop and back up, I got the VM so I didn't want to get into the wine thing. He came in to pick it up, had a huge argument saying he'd never spilled anything on his laptop. So after 10 minutes of yelling with me, and then with a manager, I opened up the unit in front of him and showed him, even let him smell the wine and told him liquid damage was not covered under the warranty. Then, ass that he is, tells me "oh well I was on vacation last month and my brother was house sitting for me, let me go make a call." He came back and apologized for yelling and he now had to go yell at his brother. Yay for dumb ass customers.

[Eremius]

He came back and apologized for yelling and he now had to go yell at his brother. Yay for dumb ass customers.

At least he apologized. That's more than I have had many of the same type of customer do.

[Dawlin]

At least he apologized. That's more than I have had many of the same type of customer do.

This. There are so many people who loose all their manners when confronted with tech support, and make all sorts of statements that they normally wouldn't.
I think it's because they feel powerless, and have to take it out on someone. We just happen to be the closest person.

[Mileron]

Caller = tech contractor for bank
User = bank person
Caller: "I'm using X Product, which is a specialty product that wraps around yours, with custom installers and DLLs, and when it activates your product, I get Error_001 related to DLL.001."
Me: "Well I dont' support X, so here, I'll send you DLL.001 to replace on your system, and OH here's a DOS command you MUST use."
Caller emails developer of X, XDev emails my DevMgr.
DevMgr visits me. "Fix X Product."

Yeah, right.

I call Caller. Do a remote session.
Me: *types in the DOS command*
Caller: "wow, it works."

No shit, sherlock.

[Alikat Astrae]

People who complain without even trying the suggested fixes need to have their asses whipped. Especially when they pull that shit about emailing everybody to complain how the fix they never tried isn't gonna work and they demand a fix right now dammit. It's obvious "magical thinking," that they can make anything happen if they just put enough pressure on a technician. It's the equivalent of putting a gun to a witch doctor's head and demanding immortality.

[Merkus]

I love the ones who scream their way to the highest exec level in order to put pressure on the people doing the actual work...causing all established processed to get abandoned because of pressure from the lower managers who just want to kiss up to the president. Things get rushed, proper testing goes out the window and a bigger mess results.

[Mileron]

Woman calls up on Monday, getting network read/write errors. We have her reboot her computer and "server" (it's not even a server, it's a repurposed workstation.) Seems OK.
She calls back Tuesday, getting memory errors. Reboot, seems OK.
Calls back later Tuesday, getting application errors that I've never seen before, only when doing certain steps. I request a copy of her workfile, as well as some local error logs.
I have no problems accessing the workfile.
The error logs indicate dozens of network errors.
Call her back. "You have network problems." Her reply: "Our network guy isn't in til Friday." Her day is done, she leaves.
Wednesday she calls back, "the problems are getting worse."
Also, one of her coworkers in the background says she's having other network-related server problems.
I remotely control her PC, and install the programs to her local C drive instead of the network drive. Guess what? No errors.

Tech guy calls me today.
Discovered that they are using a Dell Workstation T3500, w/ 3GB memory, dual 7200RPM SATA drives in RAID1... which should have no issues at all as a "repurposed server."
Running the program locally on the Dell works fine.
Set the Avast free Antivirus to exclude the program folder.
I inspected the Event and System logs. Discover that a few recent reboots have left a System log that shows the e-net controller is running HALF DUPLEX.
While he's putzing around with another issue at the same desk he discovers the "server" is connected through an ancient Linksys HUB to the network jack on the wall.
I tell him to re-set the driver to FULL DUPLEX, reboot, and get rid of the damned hub.

I should get a raise for this shit.

[Aennyil]

And fromt he other end of things I can't tell you how many times I got connected to tech services that were useless or even dangerous. One thing I learned was to hang up and call back when I had a do nothing ignorant techie who just wanted to read from a manual step by step.

Mileron that bit about full duplex instead of half is exactly what I'm talking about. And yeah, I hope your company does value your ability to think of something like that. It's that sort of knowledge and thinking that all too many companies never value in their employees.

Many is the time some techy told me I needed to do a total reinstall of my OS only to find that it was a minor setting adjustment for a new piece of hardware or some other much simpler solution.

[Melcar]

"Help"

With what?

"I went to login to my bank website, and it gave me some certificate error"

So?

"What do I do?"

Call your bank, it's not my fucking website.

[Mileron]

Client company bought a special server license to allow remote connections.
I send the info to Purchaser.
End-user Tech emails me "help it no worky."
I email her back, "do X Y and Z."
She follows my instructions TO THE LETTER (OMFG SHOCKER)... and it doesn't work.

So I remotely connect to her Admin workstation (with remote connections to the server and a client workstation...)
and discover that she's doing some hinky thing where:
the File server is named SERVER123
but the workstations view drives mapped to it as SERVERX.

And in my instructions, I had indicated for step Z that she needs to add some lines to an INI file that included [SERVERNAME] where "servername" should be the name of the server...
But it turns out that only made the problem -worse- and when I changed [SERVER123] to [SERVERX]... it worked flawlessly.

She wouldn't explain at all how her users are viewing the server with a different name, and didn't care to try, since the issue was resolved.

F'ing techs!