Page 13 of 103 FirstFirst ... 3910111213141516172363 ... LastLast
Results 241 to 260 of 2041

Thread: Tales from Techsupport

  1. #241
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Mileron View Post
    And here's an unrelated kicker:
    I had no less than a dozen different lawyers and MBA's doing that for WEEKS after they got new laptops.

    My favorite, though, was the guy who stored EVERYTHING on his desktop and always unplugged the LAN cable before logging on or off his machine because "logging in with the cable takes too long".

    Me: YES. THAT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVE A ROAMING PROFILE. PUT STUFF ON YOUR NETWORK DRIVE OR IN THE DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM WHEN YOU'RE DONE WITH IT SO YOU DON'T HAVE AN 8GB ROAMING PROFILE!

    Him: I can't do that. All of these Excel spreadsheets are linked.

    Me: *shudders*
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  2. #242
    Elder Arcanist

    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    5,222

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Bonlainy View Post
    Ah, they go right along with the PEBCAKs. Problem Exists Between chair And Keyboard.
    My favorite is Layer 8

  3. #243
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Eremius View Post
    My favorite is Layer 8
    Nepotism?

    I've seen lots of network failures due to "my {relative} is out of school for the summer. He's geeky so I'm giving him a seasonal internship in your department." :P
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  4. #244
    Elder Arcanist

    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    5,222

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Layer 8 is the User layer :-)

    Yes, nepotism sucks that way.

  5. #245
    Mr. Angsty Spice
    Melcar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    11,823

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Ok, the heatwave has brought out the Stupid:


    This morning received the "Help."

    with what?
    "I'm trying to get to this web address and it won't go there, and we tried it on somebody eles's and it looks different, and it just doesn't work help!!!!"

    OK, let's start with the difference between the text box for the Yahoo search - and the address bar.
    yahoo search doesn't like "https://" try the address bar instead...
    wow - that works so much better.

    "yeah, I'm so bad with computers - I've never learned this stuff, I'm never going to?"

    Then perhaps you should chose a profession other then Fucking secretary. Maybe try street sweeper or burger fucking flipper. Either way, quit using my oxygen.

    ---------------------------

    Now this afternoon's:

    From a better user, not completely incompetent - just mostly... she usually finds a way to do things... may not always be the most efficient, but she gets the job done.

    So, She has a word document that she wants in PDF format, but she wants to spit the one word doc into Multiple PDF's - her solution is to print it out; go out to the Canon Document center and scan it in a couple pages at a time... She's asking me for a better way to do it.

    (thankfully she asked)...
    She knew about the word Publish as PDF -- she had just never clicked on the "Options" button to find the - "page range" option
    I've got beer to drink and You guys are wasting my time.

  6. #246
    Elder Arcanist
    Junior Alt-a-holic
    Mileron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    8,120
    Blog Entries
    26

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Sales rep: Customer emailed me and told me she's getting an error
    Me: In what program?
    SR: What do you mean what program?
    Me: Which program did they get the error in?
    SR: Oh, the one from 1999
    Me: There were four
    SR: Oh, X Tax Form
    Me: *knowing it takes special instructions to install it now, due to the newer programs running off a different database engine than the old ones* Was it error 456?
    SR: How would I know?
    Me: Did she include the error in the email?
    SR: No, but she wants development to rebuild the program because she swears it won't take her data.
    Me: First off, that program hasn't been updated since 2001. It's ten years old. Second, we don't even develop using the same environment to make that program anymore.
    SR: Well what if we find a CD for development to fix the old program?
    Me: Just have the customer call us with her tech on the phone.

  7. #247
    Elder Arcanist
    Junior Alt-a-holic
    Mileron's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    8,120
    Blog Entries
    26

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Customer: I'm getting an error that indicates a permissions problem when I use your software.
    Me: *remote troubleshooting* Well yeah you don't have full control permissions to the app folder
    Customer: Call my tech about that.

    Me: Yeah, Hi, Contracted Tech? I need this user to have FC permissions to the app folder.
    Tech: Oh, they aren't in any groups, they use a guest login to get onto their server.
    Me: ...

    Who DOES that!?

  8. #248
    Elder Arcanist
    aazdazen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    2,989

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Lazy or stupid people

  9. #249

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Mileron View Post
    Who DOES that!?
    The same kind of people that design the data access layer of a web application to use web services for all of the database operations, said web services' only purpose being to pass the SQL queries, with credentials and in plain text, between two servers.

  10. #250
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Axxin View Post
    The same kind of people that design the data access layer of a web application to use web services for all of the database operations, said web services' only purpose being to pass the SQL queries, with credentials and in plain text, between two servers.
    I've seen that!
    The same app stored the sa password in plain text in the registry too!
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  11. #251

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra View Post
    I've seen that!
    The same app stored the sa password in plain text in the registry too!
    Wow. I thought that level of stupid had to be fairly unique.

  12. #252
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Axxin View Post
    Wow. I thought that level of stupid had to be fairly unique.
    It gets better.

    Since I *had* the sa password, I figured "why not just load up SQL Enterprise Manager and have a look-see?".

    Insert cartoon sound of jaw dropping like a sack full of metal tools and tin cans.

    Only a few tables had primary keys. Despite being chock full of data that was SUPPOSED to be relational data, there were only a few (3? 4?) actual relationships out of the 40 - 60 tables (It's been years so I don't remember exact numbers) and the rest were just flat, separate, unconnected globs of crap. Nevermind that tableCostModel.CostIDName should have been related to tableCostCompanyData.CostIDName, there was absolutely NOTHING tying them together.

    I still have a backup somewhere on a VM so I plan to, someday, obfuscate it sufficiently to avoid getting my ass sued and submit the schema to DailyWTF.
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  13. #253
    Chair warmer, Sector 7G
    Alikat Astrae's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Posts
    44,237

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Maybe they were doing field comparisons on the fly during queries by using nested IIF statements. Sloppy as hell.

  14. #254
    Chair warmer, Sector 7G
    Alikat Astrae's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Posts
    44,237

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Er, I mean CASE WHEN statements.

  15. #255
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Alikat Astrae View Post
    Er, I mean CASE WHEN statements.
    The developer told me that since all of the queries were hard-coded into the executable, with the exception of the user-created variables, for the application (at which point I wanted to ask "why the fuck didn't you hard-code the sa pw too instead of leaving it for all to see in the registry?") that nothing could possibly go wrong, at which point I blinked, shuddered, and tried not to think about it when dealing with that software.

    I later found out (upon having the lead dev webex into my machine and nearly pass out due to asphyxiation from talking so fast he didn't have time to breathe when he saw SQL Enterprise Manager) that they were using SQL Express and doing all of the db programming via DOS prompt because*noone* on the development team had a full copy of SQL Server with the Development Tools.

    "What is that?" "How did you get that?" "That would be very helpful!"

    Yup. He'd never even SEEN the client-side tools for MS T-SQL db's.

    /facepalm

    Hooray for outsourcing.
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  16. #256
    No prison can hold me!
    Schezar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    10,616

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Axxin View Post
    Wow. I thought that level of stupid had to be fairly unique.
    Humanity has an infinite supply of stupid.
    ------------------------------------------
    I *AM* the Chinpokomon master!

  17. #257
    Elder Arcanist

    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    4,743

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Merrick ap'Milandra View Post
    The developer told me that since all of the queries were hard-coded into the executable, with the exception of the user-created variables, for the application (at which point I wanted to ask "why the fuck didn't you hard-code the sa pw too instead of leaving it for all to see in the registry?") that nothing could possibly go wrong, at which point I blinked, shuddered, and tried not to think about it when dealing with that software.

    I later found out (upon having the lead dev webex into my machine and nearly pass out due to asphyxiation from talking so fast he didn't have time to breathe when he saw SQL Enterprise Manager) that they were using SQL Express and doing all of the db programming via DOS prompt because*noone* on the development team had a full copy of SQL Server with the Development Tools.

    "What is that?" "How did you get that?" "That would be very helpful!"

    Yup. He'd never even SEEN the client-side tools for MS T-SQL db's.

    /facepalm

    Hooray for outsourcing.
    Just in case you are not aware, SQL 2008 Express can be installed with the Studio Manager. You either have to find the correct install package or jump through hoops installing it after the SQL 2008 Express install.
    Virtually all U.S. senators, and most of the representatives in the House, are members of the top 1 percent when they arrive, are kept in office by money from the top 1 percent, and know that if they serve the top 1 percent well they will be rewarded by the top 1 percent when they leave office

  18. #258

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Schezar View Post
    Humanity has an infinite supply of stupid.
    Infinite stupidity in infinite combinations.

  19. #259
    Poof make squid!
    Merrick ap'Milandra's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Posts
    14,500
    Blog Entries
    1

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Quote Originally Posted by Mitebe View Post
    Just in case you are not aware, SQL 2008 Express can be installed with the Studio Manager. You either have to find the correct install package or jump through hoops installing it after the SQL 2008 Express install.
    Yeah, that was actually one of the better added features in the express line of late.

    They were still using 2000 because that's what they started developing on.
    For copyright purposes, all of my posts are covered under the "Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License"
    http://sam.zoy.org/wtfpl/
    Noone should sue or be sued ambiguously.

  20. #260
    Elder Arcanist

    Join Date
    Jun 2003
    Posts
    4,743

    Re: Tales from Techsupport

    Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. why would they continue to use that old tired pos. Unless they were developing since before 2008 came out and didn't want to upgrade/port to the new platform.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •