Tales from Techsupport

[Filthy]

I'm surprised they were able to crack that. It is 8 characters long with upper case lowercase and a number. I wonder if it would be harder to crack if they went with FuckUtw0.

According to them, it's actually a pretty common password. Common enough to be in the rainbow tables, anyway.

As far as I know, he hasn't gotten in trouble. We just saw the results of the audit Friday afternoon. I hope he doesn't, anyway ... he's one of three competent techs left in that division. New supervisor has chased away most of the good people already.

[Eremius]

If they would have done a special character it would have made it far harder to crack. Possibly FuckYou2!

[Melcar]

[quote]I'm surprised they were able to crack that. It is 8 characters long with upper case lowercase and a number. I wonder if it would be harder to crack if they went with FuckUtw0.[/uote]

8 is inadequate these days...

Think about it, modern computers do protein folding in their spare time... They can compute millions of digits of Pi in seconds.
Your telephone is as powerful of a computer as your desktop from 10 years ago.
Really, what's needed is 2 factor authentication... the "password" is obsolete.

[Mileron]

One of my users needs to create a CD to send to a customer.
She has a blank disc.
User: It keeps telling me there's no writable CD in the drive. I've thrown out 4 discs already because they're coming up repeatedly as not writable.
Me: You ARE using CD-R discs, yes? *I check, she is, and her drive is also a CD-RW*
User: Yes *she shows me the leftover discs, they're Memorex 52x*
Me: Let me see the disc *thinking it's already written on*
User: *pulls out the disc*
Me: *flips over the disc and find the label side down* You have it upside down.

[Mileron]

I recently replaced a desktop computer for one of my users. It was a completely new build of XP with IE8. She's too clueless to use Firefox.

User: Thank you SO much!
Me: Um... for what?
User: For giving me MSNBC on my computer instead of Google! That webpage is so boring when I open my Internet!

[Melcar]

So, I just got this email that didn't come from some guy with a different name from you and asks me to go to a website in the Ukraine and put in all of my personal info... is that from you?

[Melcar]

Boy I mangled that... proof read what's that again?

So, I just got this email that didn't come from some guy with a different name from you and asks me to go to a website in the Ukraine and put in all of my personal info... is that from you?

So I just got this email from an email address that's not yours, asking me to go to a Ukrainian website and put in all my personal info in order to keep my email account... Is that from you guys?


There, I think that's clearer.

[Schezar]

Da, komrade.

[Melcar]

Tovarisch.

[Alikat Astrae]

Zekar.

[Branaman Starbinder]

Ваше сотрудничество ценится.

[Alikat Astrae]

документы, пожалуйста.

[Branaman Starbinder]

Принимаете ли вы проверить, а не документы?

[Melcar]

So, do you guys actually speak/read/write Russian?

Or is that Google translator?

[Branaman Starbinder]

Этот перевод представлена ​​вам Google Translator

[Charbok]

Customer:
Hi, we're migrating to a new IP block, and need to change our DNS record for our Exchange server.

Me:
Excellent. (Go through the motions of scheduling the change) Ok, our DNS updates every 15 minutes, and it takes about an hour to propagate through the internet, during which time you'll likely have no mail services.

Customer:
An hour and fifteen minutes? Wow, that's great! The other guys quoted me a minimum of two days!

Me:
We used to quote that too, maybe ten years ago. The internet has gotten quite a bit faster since then.

[Mileron]

Sometimes, I'll get folks from my office call the main product support, hoping to get me, to ask me system problems when they're traveling for work reasons.

Me: *greeting*
Caller: Hi (you) this is (Sales VP from my office). I'm at home getting ready to go to Hamburg next week, and my VPN certificate expired and need your help getting it set back up.
Me: Buh... Did you get the email with the new request link?
VP: *condensed from 15 minutes of convo* Yes, and I followed the link, input my information, got the new email, clicked the download button, and now I'm getting a bunch of VBScript errors.
Me: Those I can't help you with, you'll need to call the global help desk.
VP: Oh, I did, they told me I needed to talk to my desktop support.
Me: *researches the error, there's no one single fix, and in about half the cases found, they're certificate problems* Well, walk me through the steps you used to install it.
VP: *long story short, he opened the email with the new cert download link on the computer he was remoting into*
Me: Um... you'll actually need to open the email via company webmail on the computer that you're doing the connecting FROM, not the connecting TO...
VP: Really? *clicking, he's humming, I hear a few script/activex beeps* Whaddya know, it worked that time!

[Melcar]

Whaddya know, it worked that time!

I'm shocked -- shocked I say.

[Mileron]

Major phone software upgrade took place last week.
We've had nothing but problems.
So far, this has happened twice, and I already escalated it to our newly India-based help desk:
A tech in my queue tries to transfer a call to Sales. The Sales rep doesn't pick up. It automatically makes her unavailable. The call should then be routed to either the next available Sales rep - or voicemail. It does neither. Instead, it comes to ME.

Me: Hi, thanks for calling System Support, this is (me)...
Coworker: Me, it's Tech2. I... didn't want to transfer this to Tech...
Me: Take a screenshot of your phone window, send me your logs, I'll add it to my escalation.
Coworker: *all rude* I know how to do this, you don't have to tell me
Me: ... Okay well thanks for the info, I'll pass it along with my info when I escalate.

(still haven't received the majority of the info yet, and it's 150 mins later when India calls me)
Me: *greeting* (yes, I am forced to answer the phone like that EVERY time)
India: Hello Me, this is Person-in-India, we see from the screenshot you sent that the person receiving the initial call didn't answer, so in 18 seconds it automatically goes to the next available Sales Rep
Me: Right, I understand that. I'm not a Sales Rep.
India: You're not?


And here's an unrelated kicker:
Put a new laptop with docking station on another Coworker's desk today
He comes over to my desk a couple minutes ago
PICNIC: Yeah, hi Me, I think I killed it
Me: That's not funny, Picnic, it hasn't even been four hours, what did you do?
PICNIC: Oh, I hit the dock eject button while the laptop was fully on... and now it won't go back on...
Me: *I go to his desk, pull out the battery for 10 seconds, unplug the dock for 10 seconds, put it all back together, it boots.* Yeah, don't do that again.

PICNIC = Problem In Chair, Not In Computer

[Bonlainy]

Ah, they go right along with the PEBCAKs. Problem Exists Between chair And Keyboard.