Tales from Techsupport

[Melcar]

IP address obtained from DHCP : 192.168.1.60
Gateway: 192.168.1.1

DNS servers (Not obtained from DHCP) 10.1.10.20
10.1.10.30

--- Geee - the internet don't work?? I wonder why U Can't find any websites?

OH good GOD!

I just got a call from this laptop user -- "Internet not working"...

Get up there, (original tech went home early)...

Sure enough, DNS settings are set to Fixed again.

If it's DHCP leave it On DHCP!. fuck why is this concept so fucking hard to explain?

[Mileron]

Me: I need you to use your old domain admin account to reset the password on my old domain admin account
Lead Tech: Sure
LT: Wait, I can't use my old domain admin account to change new domain accounts
Me: But I don't need you to change my new domain account. I need you to change my old domain account.
LT: But my old domain account doesn't access the new domain
Me: Right, but because my old domain admin account is on the old domain, you don't have to worry about the new one
LT: So how do we get valid new domain accounts, or do we at all?
Me: I told Netops that we'll need them for when Dev starts VM testing. I was told that, since she doesn't have any VMs to test, they don't want to give us admin accounts yet.
LT: Nice, so what was Netops' response?
Me: ... That we need to actually have something to administer before they'll give us administrative logins
LT: So your old domain admin account works on the old domain
Me: Yes, I'd like you to reset the password on my old domain admin account please, because I still use it to administer the old domain-based server that we use
LT: So you want me to reset OD\Youradmin?
Me: Yes please

Who's on first?

[Tinthalas Tigris]

Jesus.

It might seem like something only encountered in IT, but that is my day to day in dealing with people at work in general, only far more obtuse and much less receptive.

[Melcar]

It might seem like something only encountered in IT, but that is my day to day in dealing with people at work in general, only far more obtuse and much less receptive.

Stupidity follows all walks of life...

For example, this is one my ex-wife told me, she worked at the reception desk of an automotive repair shop.
Elderly man brought in a vehicle that wasn't starting. Repair shop looked the vehicle over; and said OK, it's going to cost minimum ($x) to fix it.... This vehicle is not worth it - are you sure you want us to do this?

Elderly man says, No I'll just come and get it.

Short while later - repair shop gets a summons to small claims court -- See because Repair shop didn't fix the starter (per his instructions) he was forced to "pull start" the vehicle... (get it to speed & pop the clutch)../... Well, he did that a few times & burned out the clutch. (big shocker).

He explained all this to the judge; the judge turned repair shop owner siad "ok,anything to ad?"

Nope...

[FilanFyretracker]

Stupidity follows all walks of life...

For example, this is one my ex-wife told me, she worked at the reception desk of an automotive repair shop.
Elderly man brought in a vehicle that wasn't starting. Repair shop looked the vehicle over; and said OK, it's going to cost minimum ($x) to fix it.... This vehicle is not worth it - are you sure you want us to do this?

Elderly man says, No I'll just come and get it.

Short while later - repair shop gets a summons to small claims court -- See because Repair shop didn't fix the starter (per his instructions) he was forced to "pull start" the vehicle... (get it to speed & pop the clutch)../... Well, he did that a few times & burned out the clutch. (big shocker).

He explained all this to the judge; the judge turned repair shop owner siad "ok,anything to ad?"

Nope...

Tech people get that too where someone calls in wanting help with an old operating system and a computer that is equally old... Once with Comcast I got a call for someone wanting help with Mac OS9... and it was in 2008 or 8 years after the initial release of OSX.

[Woodja]

Tech people get that too where someone calls in wanting help with an old operating system and a computer that is equally old... Once with Comcast I got a call for someone wanting help with Mac OS9... and it was in 2008 or 8 years after the initial release of OSX.

We have pc's on our network that are running win2k - the pcs themselves are 10+ years old. Some of the servers are still running win2k server. Oh the joys of a government contracts

[Macfudd]

My stories all go the other way. Fairly switched on long term employee clashing with jaded, cynical tech support department used to dealing with people who have no idea.

Following a team relocation a co-workers PC wouldn't log in. Pretty obvious problem - the network cable isn't plugged in.
But plugging it in doesn't work, none of the 3 ports at that location seem to be active. So as we have a software based phone system (Microsoft Lync) I call for her.

Me - "Hi, blah introduction, my coworker can't log in as none of the network ports at her location are active following the desk move"
TS - "All PC's were tested and signed off as working following the relocation"
Me - "Ok, great, but this one can't connect to the network, the cable wasn't plugged in so it couldn't have been signed off"
TS - 'I have an email saying that all PC's were tested and working"
Me - "Well this one isn't, can someone come and look at it, I've tried all 3 ports at that location, shut down between trying each one and confirmed using a different PC that there are no problems with the cable. Is it possible that a port just needs to be activated or something?"
TS - "Was there a PC at this location previously?"
Me - "I can't say for sure as we only moved here today but I think there was"
TS - "If there was no PC then you need to raise a request to activate that location"
Me - "Thats automatic on the relocation forms tho, thats why there's an 'all ok' signoff and there's a 5 day turnaround on new requests so I'm not doing that"
TS - "Let me investigate... (puts me on hold for about 10 minutes). Ok, the port does need to be activated on our end, I'll call you when its ready"

Instead about 15 minutes a minion from Tech Support shows up who has clearly only been passed a message that 'A PC at x location isn't working'. He walks up, sees the network cable is unplugged (I had left it neatly coiled on the side of the desk), heaves the biggest sigh I've ever heard, plugs it in, gets my co-worker to login (which works), heaves another massive sigh and then storms off. I can just imagine what he would have ranted about to his friends that evening

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Were you asking me or Merrick?

For me, I'm the Senior IT guy for a small local government in MN.

Aww, here I was hoping for your sake that you'd moved before winter hit this year, I think you were talking about it last year and how sick you were of the cold.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

I learned long ago to just not dwell on it if the person in question isn't a tech of some sort. If they are I may or may not report the lack of useful technical skills to their chain of command.

I would never report one of my technical team members to a manager above me for lack of knowledge.

I prefer to teach.

Over a decade and a half in the industry I've learned that so much requires a depth and breadth of knowledge that no one person can fully keep up on it all, even if their google-fu is strong.

If it gets bad enough on a performance level that it comes down to ME *and* the rest of the team being in trouble for a lack of departmental performance when I'm in charge and I've already done everything I can to try and teach (and fought for more training budget), I typically let them know privately and personally, outside of work, that there's pressure from up top to cut staff and I'm doing everything I can to fight it, but that now might be the time to start looking, just in case.

When this has happened in the past, I've done everything I can to make sure they get full unemployment benefits. So far, I have a 100% success rate, and I always write truthful recommendation letters (for technical employees who turned out to be non-technical in some areas due to HR not understanding the position requirements when they hired someone, I talk up what they ARE good at.)

Typically people who work under me trust me, so the few times it's happened in the past where they weren't a good fit, they kinda knew anyway on their own.

I don't report anything but outright purposeful wrongdoing or blatant violations of policy.

I don't let it SLIDE, but it doesn't need to go uphill unless there's a pattern or something is malicious or illegal.

[Schezar]

I would never report one of my technical team members to a manager above me for lack of knowledge.

I prefer to teach.

Over a decade and a half in the industry I've learned that so much requires a depth and breadth of knowledge that no one person can fully keep up on it all, even if their google-fu is strong.

If it gets bad enough on a performance level that it comes down to ME *and* the rest of the team being in trouble for a lack of departmental performance when I'm in charge and I've already done everything I can to try and teach (and fought for more training budget), I typically let them know privately and personally, outside of work, that there's pressure from up top to cut staff and I'm doing everything I can to fight it, but that now might be the time to start looking, just in case.

When this has happened in the past, I've done everything I can to make sure they get full unemployment benefits. So far, I have a 100% success rate, and I always write truthful recommendation letters (for technical employees who turned out to be non-technical in some areas due to HR not understanding the position requirements when they hired someone, I talk up what they ARE good at.)

Typically people who work under me trust me, so the few times it's happened in the past where they weren't a good fit, they kinda knew anyway on their own.

I don't report anything but outright purposeful wrongdoing or blatant violations of policy.

I don't let it SLIDE, but it doesn't need to go uphill unless there's a pattern or something is malicious or illegal.

It's a situational thing, but every job has basics that you can and should expect every single person in that job to know. If you are a PC repair tech I expect you to know how to image and reinstall applications, what the system specs are and how to upgrade them, what the various connectors are, and how to add a computer to the domain, and how to troubleshoot all of the above. If you cannot do any of the above then you are dead weight that needs to be cut or trained or something. My position is not a trainer for any and all positions within the company, hence why I would contact that person's sup to let them know. They will know far better than me whether that individual can be trained or not, and it serves as a paper trail if future negative interactions take place. For coworkers and teams that support my position I will definitely be able to help train as needed, and am in a position to see who is useful and who is not. But then again Comcast is a whale of a company with hundreds if not thousands of various specialized teams around the country.

[Melcar]

Aww, here I was hoping for your sake that you'd moved before winter hit this year, I think you were talking about it last year and how sick you were of the cold.

A lot of that was the influence of my (ex) wife...

[Mileron]

Coworker: All my bookmarks in Chrome disappeared
Me: Did you delete them?
Coworker: nooooo!
Me: Are you sure you were in Chrome, and not in Firefox or IE?
Coworker: No, I listened to you, I use only Chrome now, no more IE
Me: (at her desk) You have no bookmarks
Coworker: (looking at me like I'm stupid) Yes, all gone
Me: (Imports from her IE bookmarks which are 98% identical to what she said she lost)
Coworker: (starts deleting some of the bookmarks just imported from IE via the Bookmark bar) These are in the way
Me: You know that deleting them from the bar deletes them completely
Coworker: Nuh uh! Look! (shows me the list of bookmarks in Chrome, and the ones she just deleted are gone...)

You could hear the gears grinding and trying to power the lightbulb

[Melcar]

Coworker: Hey I think I screwed something up on this server's backup tape drive. Instead of hitting eject - I hit power off -I turned it back on- but now it says "c" on it's display...

Me:don't you think the "c" is probably short for "Clean Me"?

Coworker: I never thought of that.

[Merrick ap'Milandra]

Coworker: Hey I think I screwed something up on this server's backup tape drive. Instead of hitting eject - I hit power off -I turned it back on- but now it says "c" on it's display...

Me:don't you think the "c" is probably short for "Clean Me"?

Coworker: I never thought of that.

That, right there, is why I always make sure the manual is RIGHT NEXT to the tape drive, hahaha.

[Melcar]

That, right there, is why I always make sure the manual is RIGHT NEXT to the tape drive, hahaha.

Sounds like a lovely idea... But why would we read the manual when Melcar can tell us the answer faster?

[Mileron]

I walked into the breakroom a full hour late today to take my lunch as I had been stuck on a customer call.
Nice guy, no issues.
No, this is about what happened in the break room.

When I take lunch at 11:30am, I'm the only one in a room that could support 60-80, so I get free reign of the tables and I get to put whatever I want to watch on TV - usually Syfy or BBCAmerica for ST:TNG or Doctor Who.
Since my usual table was taken I took a seat on the high stools at the window ledge looking out over the city, unpacked my lunch, and started towards the microwave bank to heat up my food.

I hear a loud banging and indistinct muttering coming from the guy who's trying to turn on the second TV.
It simply shows "no signal" on screen (which I've seen before, using the TV daily myself.)
I said to him, "Just hit the power button on the remote".
A woman from the office IT group goes over to help him.
They start disconnecting cables, screwing around with TV settings.
Nothing was working.

After my lunch finished heating up, I placed it at my seat and walked over to the remote control, dangling in the air from its "don't steal this" cord attached to the TV.
I popped open the battery cover on the remote, re-seated the loose battery, pushed the "Cable" button, and tapped the "Power" button (not the "ALL ON" button) and walked away.

Fifteen seconds later the signal woke up the TV.

Naturally, neither said thank you.

[Melcar]

received via email:

Can you give me a price list and options on Ipads?

SURE! https://www.apple.com/ipad/

You're welcome.

[Ronaan]

A coworker asked me - hesitantly and very politely - if I'd take a look at his computer.

He's such a nice guy in his 50s I couldn't say no.

Removed malware, thing still hangs randomly. No problem he said. I'll buy a new one, it's old anyway.

He bought a new one last week.

Spent two hours removing malware just now and I'm not done.

Holy fuck some people should stay away from this stuff.

All he did was install skype, he thought. Browser hijacked, popups everywhere, the works.

Got €75 so I can't even be mad at him but damn. The poor guy won't make it another week.

[Niellya]

IT Pros: Trade your tech support stories for a Surface Pro 3

Share your story between now and February 15, and then, once all the submissions are in, I’ll sit down with a team here at Microsoft to select the top finalists. Once the finalists are chosen, we’ll open it up to an online vote to determine who wins the grand prize.

Also, during every week of this contest there will be a random drawing to give away a Microsoft Band and $50 Starbucks card to someone who submitted an entry.

The grand prize at the end of the contest will be a Surface Pro 3 + keyboard.

[Melcar]

So can we just link the thread?