Tales from Techsupport

[Ronaan]

Seeing how one of my Lusers ruined two Usb ports on one notebook by trying to push it in upside-down, ....

So today I got the second part of this. Luser1 complained to the Boss that the USB ports on "that stupid thing" are fucked up.
Boss ofcourse comes to me and asks me if I know that.

I tell him that yes I do indeed know that Luser1 managed to ruin both USB ports and that no I don't think I can repair them (short of taking a soldering iron to the mainboard).
I also tell him, because I'm in a really bad mood, that Luser1 did not only wreck the company's presentation-notebook but also previously fucked up the display on his personal-issue notebook. He also managed to ruin the DVD drive of that one. So when it no longer worked he came and took the presentation-notebook whenever he needed one.

And to top it off he only needs the USB ports to plug in his private portable HD which is full of pirated music. Private data storage devices are not allowed to be connected to company computers. He doesn't give a shit.
OH THE HUMANITY.

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[Mileron]

In the last couple weeks, a few people in my office have decided to start using some empty space in the office for exercise reasons.
One brings in a laptop and some kind of exercise dvd, and they use an empty conference room for zumba or whatever.

However they've also taken to alternating days of that with walking around the office. There's an empty space, about 60x90, that they fast-walk around a few times during the day. Unfortunately, due to the fact that only one out of these 4 people is a call center rep, that means "whenever the hell they want to" including "when they get up to print, or pee or whatever."

I happen to sit 8 feet away from this "walking area." Unfortunately, out of the other 6 people who might be affected, 1 is one of the walkers, and 4 work from home 4-5 days a week. I'm one of the only mainstays.

So I'm on the phone with a customer who calls me out on the fading/loud/fading stomping (one of the walkers wears heavy heels) and I had to tell her that it was due to roof work...

I go up to one of the walkers and request they stop doing this at all times of the day, and instead walk, I don't know, maybe around the lake outside the office.

Walker: We're trying to get exercise.
Me: I understand and appreciate that. I ride a bicycle a few miles a week for the same goal. However, you are doing it on company time, in company space, and affecting daily business. Please stop walking for your exercise indoors.
Walker: But it's only once or twice a day.
Me: While people are on the phone with customers. I've had a couple complaints. Why not walk around the 2/3rd mile lake we have out back?
Walker: It's too hot out to do anything like that.

It's me, I know it is.

[Schezar]

That's an easy one to handle. Tell them to stop or it goes to management. Also stop lying to cover their asses. Say it's your coworkers causing the noise and apologize loud enough for them to hear it.

[Mileron]

I get an Email from Sales to Support: Please call Customer for issues with Product
I call the customer. "Here's one of my issues, but I don't want you to tell me exactly how to fix it (even if it is as simple as right-clicking the icon and choosing "Run As Administrator") because I'm too important as a non-technical attorney so you need to instead call the office manager who will get you in contact with our IT"
I leave a voicemail for the Office Manager.
A half hour later I get an email from a different Sales rep, stating that the office manager called her and complained that "it's extremely difficult to get in contact with our support, that she's called a dozen times, and that they're about to return their software"
First off - we only have one call record for them, 34 days ago, and they were working at that time.
Secondly - they're a demo customer, having not even paid for anything yet, and the demo is only valid for 30 days, so at that point, I wouldn't expect anything to work anyway
The second sales rep includes a phone number for the customer's IT department, so I call him. Nicest guy. Tell him about the lack of cooperation regarding troubleshooting. "Oh, yeah, I'm sorry you had to talk to him, he's our favorite user."

*snicker*

[Mileron]

My company has an internal global news portal, that includes a lot of company-specific stuff.

I get an email from a coworker about one of the postings, regarding VPN access problems during the 2012 Olympics.

In London.

"There is a link to an article about using VPN in London during the Olympics. Is this something that could affect our VPN users here?"

On the East Coast of the US, none of whom VPN to London.

*sigh*

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Get a call from an admin assistant.
"The VP is remoted into the network and when accessing a particular folder on his shared drive, he can't see it. It's empty for him, but I can see it just fine."

I check permissions, he has rights. There is a single NINE THOUSAND PAGE PDF FILE (over 1 gigabyte in size) in said folder.

I get contact information to get ahold of the VP so I can shadow his remote session and see what he sees.

As it turns out, No, he CANNOT see the pdf file, because he's navigating to his shared drive by clicking File -> Open in MOTHERFUCKING MICROSOFT WORD.

/facepalm

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

I should add that he KNEW it was a pdf.

[Backster]

I kind of want a User centered revenge thread...I'd start my own but you guys would probably pwn me. But seriously I just had my 6th employee set up with a computer since January and I have yet to have them manage to provide both access and software correctly. Of course Security Admin and Software distribution hate each other so spend all their time blaming the other unless you confront them and then they turn the acronym war onto the business unit (me).

My last conversation on this ended, "Seriously, I have 5 people - their computers have this stuff and this access. Please let my new person's be exactly like that."

[Ronaan]

As it turns out, No, he CANNOT see the pdf file, because he's navigating to his shared drive by clicking File -> Open in MOTHERFUCKING MICROSOFT WORD.

/facepalm

My users do that a lot.
/sigh

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

I kind of want a User centered revenge thread...I'd start my own but you guys would probably pwn me. But seriously I just had my 6th employee set up with a computer since January and I have yet to have them manage to provide both access and software correctly. Of course Security Admin and Software distribution hate each other so spend all their time blaming the other unless you confront them and then they turn the acronym war onto the business unit (me).

My last conversation on this ended, "Seriously, I have 5 people - their computers have this stuff and this access. Please let my new person's be exactly like that."

This *just* happened this week.

This is also precisely why I heavily advocate NEW USER SETUP documents.

[Backster]

We have a 65 page manual from the system access area (SARs requests are a running joke, especially given it's the name of the contagious disease) none of which really details anything for an end user - it's all audit and paper trail-centred. For software IT doesn't use the same language as any of the users as we have so much built over the years shit in house that asking for software results in completely random stuff being added

[Mileron]

Phone call
I'm on speakerphone
Tock tick. tock tick. tock tick.

I'm trying to talk to the customer and she's got a bunch of people coming in and out of the office talking to her, trying to ask her about business things, while I'm also trying to conduct business with her and get questions answered about her problem.

Tock tick. Tock tick. Tock tick.

She keeps walking away from the phone when I need her to not, because her terminal server keeps popping up administrative logins when we're trying to do non-administrative stuff (like rename folders that aren't in use, and aren't in a protected parent) leaving me to sit and wait until she comes back

Tock tick. Tock tick. Tock tick.

And the fucking clock in the office is VERY LOUD.

Do do DO do. Do do DO do. Do do DO DO.BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG. BONG.

Tock tick. Tock tick. Tock tick.

It's been 65 minutes for what should have been a 20 minute call, and it's not looking to end any time soon.

[FilanFyretracker]

people who call tech support should give their focus to the phone rep. doing internet tech support for the general public there are many times I was tossed onto call waiting so they could take another call, I usually had a 3-4min CW limit and then I ended the call, noted the account that the customer left me on hold and moved along. People today are generally rude when doing business with someone, They call support and then when one tells them to try and reset their modem they are gabbing with friends or answering their cell.

[Alikat Astrae]

We have a 65 page manual from the system access area (SARs requests are a running joke, especially given it's the name of the contagious disease) none of which really details anything for an end user - it's all audit and paper trail-centred. For software IT doesn't use the same language as any of the users as we have so much built over the years shit in house that asking for software results in completely random stuff being added

At PARC we all got the computer system brand we wanted, but were then responsible for setting it up and maintaining it ourselves, because hey, we were all technical tigers. There was a big fat server that people shared files on, it was accessible from Appletalk, Novell, and TCP/IP. Opting for the best of both worlds, I got a Mac with a PC Card.

[Voca]

Wait, Ali worked at PARC? Ok, I am impressed.

[Alikat Astrae]

And was part of the fun when we spun off the EIL to create dpiX. Flat panel patents, we farmed 'em.

[Schezar]

Did they give all the employees PARCas for Christmas?

[Alikat Astrae]

No, but we got the day off! And some of us even stayed out of the lab!

[Mileron]

One of the products I support underwent a major retooling/upgrade last weekend.
5 days of downtime to activate a new SQL solution which went off without much of a hitch.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, all of the support agents who support that product were receiving emails with status updates on the servers in a "hey look at how much better we're serving our customers" vein.

Today, my most clueless user forwards me ALL of those "SQL status" emails (she has been in the office all week) with a series of ???? as her email body.

Then she walks over to my desk and says, "Why do I keep getting these squirrel emails? I don't have any squirrels, and none of the customers I talk to have mentioned squirrels in their software. Is that like a virus, or a bug? But why squirrels?"

[Melcar]

After the power flickered a couple days ago and shut down my computer, I can no longer minimize screens. I logged off last night in case it would reset itself but today isn’t any different. Can someone help me out here; I’m sure it’s something obvious that I’ve missed. Thanks.

Yup, Clicking the Maximize/Restore button isn't supposed to minimize the window.

Well if you just want it resized all ya gots to do is click and Drag....


I R da rocket surgeon!