Reply With QuoteA picture is worth a thousand words, so a screenshot is worth an explanation, right?
Email received with subject HELP
Screenshot attached depicts font problem
Reply to customer:
Me: Hello, I see based on the screenshot attached that you're having a font problem. Here are the steps to fix it. Additionally, I've attached our Font document for more information if these steps don't resolve the issue. If you have any other questions or if the issue continues, please reply or call me. Have a great day!
Reply back from customer:
Customer: This is NOT a font issue
... Ok you're right, I'm wrong, I can't have been here 12 years and not possibly recognize what the problem is without any description at all and just a screenshot.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so a screenshot is worth an explanation, right?
Non-user Non-tech Tech: We're trying to increase the number of licenses for our app, but when we do, it automatically reverts to the previous number
Me: Are there any errors?
NuNtT: No
Me: Let's walk through the process
NuNtT: OK.
Me: I hear her go through all the steps, she reads me everything she sees
NuNtT: Nope, as soon as I click to finalize the activation, the updated number goes back to original
Me: Let's do a remote session
NuNtT: sighs as if I told her that I thought the sky was orange Okay, sure
Me: I get into her system and go through the steps... There's an error here that says the license is invalid due to you having activations in two places
NuNtT: Well, that was coming up before, is that pertinent?
No, because why would an error message be important?
Caller: I'm telling you, I processed that information myself!
Me: Okay, I accept that you believe that, however I'm showing you four different places in three different log files that you never once processed said information via the method you described.
Caller: Wait, what was that last date you showed me?
Me: 9/22/16
Caller: I didn't use the program then... hang on.. which tax type was that? Hmm... let me look at something
Caller: hemming and hawing Well whaddya know, it appears that I didn't in fact process that information, because according to our internal time sheet logging on this matter, someone, probably one of the paralegals, did it in May.
Me: Well I'm glad you figured it out.
Caller: Me too!
I've had sooooo many users go:"Well, I certainly didn't take/make that phonecall/updated user data/update payment data".
Once I show them their credentials and start referring to the third decimal in the seconds-part of the date, they tend to come around
If they don't, I start to bring out the Mileron-style big log guns. But my users are usually really nice people; It's rare that I have to resort to something other than specific entity timestamps.
"Silver bullet solutions are rare, silver bullet sales commonplace"
When I read this news story, I thought of this thread. Weep for the tech guys at the NHS:
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37979456
So the chip reader pads at the local supermarket give the option of "Visa Debit"(aka credit) and "US Debit"(aka normal debit) when you slide in a normal debit/credit card like most banks issue. The store has to have signs so people know to hit "US Debit" if they want it to work like a ATM.
I have to wonder which idiot engineer thought that UI setup was a good idea, cashiers have to tech support customers because some idiot at the company that made the thing decided against "Debit" and "Credit".
Today we sail
On the Solar Rail
For there's much we just don't know
So farewell with a kiss
Then it's fast for the mist
Till we're sleeping in the cold below
Yes, I understand that out 1.2m only 120 did 'reply-all'. But that's enough to spawn 140million emails.Originally Posted by Delores Mulva
Herb
Blog
It's taken us a couple of years, but most of our staff know to BCC when they do a mass mail to keep this from happening. It was too difficult to teach the user base to not reply-all.
BAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
That happened at Cargill a number of years back, apparently.
Internet acquaintance of mine worked there at the time.
Their e-mail was down for DAYS as they cleaned it up.
This is why only select people should have "send to all" privileges and anything over 100 people or so on a Distribution Group should have VERY careful administration with regards to who can send to it.
I've seen this happen multiple times on many scales.
It's fucking hilarious every time.
Somehow, noone ever bothers to address the need to actually audit the infrastructure and secure it from happening again.
I recall once dropping a PHP mailbomb on my boss when he said "the mail server works fine, don't touch it, there's nothing wrong with the settings" and flooding his inbox with a few thousand emails in the space of a second.
No disruption of service for anyone else, but he ended up conceding that if I could do that with less than ten lines of code, we should probably look into things.
Nobody EVER secures infrastructure properly unless it's a compliance issue or they got hurt by NOT securing it.
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.
Everything about those chip reader pads is dumb.
If you swipe, you get "debit/credit" as options.
If you drop it in the reader, you wait 90 seconds for it to figure out WTF it's doing, type your PIN, Authorize, Authorize again (or sign) sometimes, and THEN the purchase goes through.
Oh, and they're not really more secure, they're just making longer lines.
You can >>clone them<<, you can do >>Man in the middle attacks<<, hell, all you need is a >>paper clip, a needle, and a recording device<< and proof of this goes back more than half a decade, long before banks over here were wasting our money adopting the damned things.
It's dumb technology and we could do a hell of a lot better.
Even when Costco used AmEx, they printed your picture on the card. That only helps with in-person transactions, but given how prevalent skimmers are, we need a more selective and better encrypted transaction system. The terminals can't read EVERYTHING off of the chips in most cases, but they can still get too much.
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.
Yep.
Everywhere I've worked in the last decade that had anyone with send-to-all rights, if it was a separate account that only a few people could access and every one of them worked in IT and knew to BCC.
An idiot could still hit the global address list and start selecting everyone at random, but that was locked down, too, because you had to have rights to send to more than x number of recipients and every DG, listed or not, had privileges locked.
Everywhere I've worked where it wasn't in place when I started, it was eventually in place by the time I quit or sooner.
It's just good policy.
People communicate via e-mail. Preventing a handful of morons from taking that ability away from the whole company is just good sense.
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.
'Member the "I Love You" virus? Oh, I 'member!
I still remember the horrors of that one.
Goodtimes
Yeah, I remember that.
What I really hate, though, are the cryptoviruses.
Some idiot will open an attachment and "nothing" happens, so they ignore it.
3 days later every word doc, excel spreadsheet, powerpoint, and half a dozen other things on every local and network location the idiot user had access to is 100% toast.
"Sorry, you'll either have to work without any of them, or just close up shop. It'll take about a week to restore all 12 Terabytes from the tape library, because you didn't want to upgrade your backup system."
We had one where we got everything restored and what must have been almost immediately, someone hit an attachment again because 3 days later? All gone again. Then they did it a third time.
"So the next time I open one of these, I should call you right away?"
"Uhh, or just STOP OPENING THEM!"
"But they look important!"
"If it's not from someone you're expecting an e-mail from, don't open it. If it *is* from someone you're expecting an e-mail from, DON'T OPEN IT until after you've called them and verified that they sent it."
"That seems like too much work".
"WHAT DO YOU THINK RESTORING YOUR WHOLE SERVER FARM IS?!?!?!?"
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.
At that point you start piling up the red tape for them so they can see just how much work you can bring them next time: "Oh no, you need this signed off by your department head before I can work in there. It's an acknowledgement that he knows that you caused this crisis by opening that attachment I warned you about, and that the next time I do this it's coming out of his budget as an in-company expense."
That's how we do it at my job.
Yeah some people abuse the overhead services and need to be reminded that they are a cost center.
can you block attachments based on user level?
block attachments at that user level and send out a wide email "Due to misuse of company systems everybody below this "rank" is no longer able to send, receive or open attachments on any emails"
Though id imagine that would draw an unholy shitstorm from management.
Today we sail
On the Solar Rail
For there's much we just don't know
So farewell with a kiss
Then it's fast for the mist
Till we're sleeping in the cold below
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