"Do u know what Minecraft is?" Tech Support |
| "Do u know what Minecraft is?" Posted: 01 Apr 2018 01:22 PM PDT So first off, I hope I qualify as tech support. I do a tiny bit of support at my day job when the normal support is overwhelmed, but I'm not full time or anything. In fact, this story didn't even happen at my job. A little bit of background... A number of years back when Windows 10 and UWP first came out, I wrote a small flipbook-style app to get familiar with the platform. I listed it for $0.99 and, between normal installs and too many free promotions, managed to make about $100 off of >1,000 installs. And then it sat as I moved on to other things. Fast-forward a few years to just about a half-year ago now and I decided it was time to update the thing. The old version was very outdated, and I'd learned enough about the platform that I felt I could make the update worth my time. So I did. I also made the app free. And people seemed to like the update. Until a week ago. There's an issue I've been seeing crop up which causes the app to crash. As far as I can tell, it's a problem with how Windows handles files, and I haven't yet found a workaround. It's not a really frequent issue, but frequent enough to be worrying. And I finally got hit for it by a bad review. Fair enough. $Frodo = reviewer $Frodo's review (not sic): "I was drawing and making a picture of a Xbox 360 and fighting and it blew up and the guy flew into space saying FUUUUUUUUU and then the app crashed and my drawing was lost fix your bull**** blulitangel!!!" Ok, I can get that it's frustrating to lose your work. However, this read an awful lot like other fake reviews I've seen. I can't really say what exactly about it sounds fake, you just learn to tell, I guess. No matter, I've made a habit of responding to any review under 5 stars, offering support if needed or asking for any suggestions that could make it 5 stars for the user. So I responded: "Hi $Frodo, so sorry to hear about the crash! It's frustrating when work is lost like that! If you send an email to me@email.com, I'll do my best to help see if the files are recoverable." The thing is that if the user saved the project at any point, the files should still be on disk and recovering them not a problem. I didn't expect a reply. I've never, in the years I've been responding to reviews, gotten a reply. But this time I did. I was sound asleep when, in the middle of the night, I got two emails: $Frodo: "It's alright! 😊❤😆" $Frodo: "Whats ur phone number btw? i know your email but not ur phone number." When I woke up and saw the emails I wasn't quite sure what to think or what to reply. I thought about it for a while and finally decided to just press ahead with trying to recover $Frodo's files. $blulitangel: "Hi $Frodo, <Explained the issue and that the files may be recoverable if he'd saved the project at all.> Unfortunately I'm not comfortable handing out my phone number, as I'm sure you can understand." $Frodo: Subject: "??", Body: "Do u no what Minecraft is?" $Frodo: Subject: "???", Body: "What's your YouTube channel??????????????" $Frodo: Subject: "I never saved I was working on my drawing.", Attachment: A selfie of what I'd say is a 7-10 year old boy sitting in what looks like a car. By now I'm getting a little.... concerned. I decided to just ignore the first two emails and try to wrap up the conversation. $blulitangel: "Unfortunately if you did not save the project then the files were never written to the disk. I apologize for the headache! I'm doing my best to figure out a workaround for the crash." $Frodo: "💞💞💞💞💞💞" Needless to say, I did not respond to that. I'm hoping that's the end of the conversation, but somehow I'm not quite sure it is. I don't mind saying I'm now just a little leery of encouraging people to contact me... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Apr 2018 05:58 PM PDT I have not posted here in a long while because, frankly, there are only so many post-worthy TFTS. Last night, a conversation about loud noises reminded me of this little gem featuring our favorite guy, $CTG. For reference and timeline Cast of Characters Around this time I am in charge of our merry band of helpdesk techs. I've also been charged with crafting a yearly budget for hardware, which resulted in The Dell Game. During all this, I've been working on a couple of other things. One was to get all our department in close proximity so that we can at least talk to each other. Something that may not matter in other departments, but is very helpful when you're doing tech support. Being the red-headed stepchild that IT always is, we didn't have an assigned area of the building. Instead, we all worked in a cubicle farm used for admin assistants, interns, and temp personnel. Our cubicles were assigned on a first come, first serve basis. Whatever cubicle happened to be empty the day you started work, that's where you sat. Forever. I worked behind the scenes to get us all concentrated in one area. When a nearby cubicle came up empty, I'd get some admin person to let me change one of the techs seating assignment. So now we are all in one spot. We can share tools, set up some shared storage space, set up a software library, etc. All that good stuff. $CTG hated this. Before this he could hide in his cube. No one around him understood his job, so he couldn't be caught slacking. Now that all the people around did exactly the same job, his incompetence was glaringly evident. As was every time he disappeared for hours. Taking advantage of The Dell Game satisfaction of my boss, I lobbied for a couple of real, professional work stations. Made for IT. With KVMs and power strips. All the perks. I got it! Yeah!! The only IT designated space we had was the server room. It was decided that was where the workstations were to be placed. Mostly because it was behind locked doors, so security. This wasn't a problem. The server room was large by most standards. Think the size of a large living room. It had 3-4 server racks, a desk for doing log entries, and lots of empty space. Work stations are set up and we now had the capacity to work on 7-8 computers at a time. Plus no more tools and computer parts spread out in our cubicles. Everyone was pleased. Except $CTG. Because now, not only was he absorbing passive disapproval for goofing off in his cubicle, getting noticed each time he disappeared, but other techs could look over his shoulder and offer advice when he actually decided to work. This could NOT happen!
I call the OSHA guy. He laughs at me. Noise levels have never been measured in that room. It's not necessary. You can tell by listening that the noise levels are no where near where safety levels need to be considered. Back to $Boss.
Back to OSHA guy.
Which means that $OSHA taught me to use some cool tools. I spent a couple of hours learning how to use them, and I ended up with some minor certificate that says I know how to operate them. (Which also means that in the future I spent some time with the $OSHA guy helping out. Not bad. Not bad at all. I love learning new shit.) While this is happening, $CTG is back to slacking off. He refuses to enter the server room. He doesn't have access to tools, so he's basically only clearing paper jams and resetting passwords. He's shoving off any serious work to other techs. Back to the Boss.
......
.......
So now, I am randomly measuring noise levels at different times and recording them on a sheet. If I remember correctly, I had to do this for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile $CTG is slacking off....still refusing to enter the server room. I get all the testing done. Do the charts. Everything looks good. Turn it over to $Boss. A few days later...
.....
The next day a box of ear plugs appear mounted to the wall beside the server room. You would think that would be the end of it, right? But $CTG has to have one last try.... $CTG still tries to pawn his work off to another tech, since he can't go in the server room. The tech tells him to use the ear plugs and do his own work.
The ear plugs stayed mounted on the server room door. No one used them. $CTG went back to the server room. [link] [comments]  |
| "Oh, its not mine, so I didn't touch it." Posted: 01 Apr 2018 04:27 PM PDT Got a real bad story. I was told to go out to a satellite office that's a good 30 minutes from the main office, to install !RemoteSoftware and a few !OldWashedUpCameraCompany security cams so we can see if they are really working. So I arrive, and the office is an absolute mess; all in disarray, conference room has all sorts of paper/documents strewn across it, dusty, smelly, a mess. And to think people from the public pass by and go inside it to do something very expensive nearly every day. I cleaned up a little (it was OK'd and I got paid for it) and got to installing the cameras. One slight problem, no one knew the wireless password. I go to a back office where they have an overkill !Webtools router set up for the whole office, set up by a non-IT person. The person hadn't been there for 4 months due to an accident and was planning to come back sometime soon. Lots of dust on everything, and I see a !OverpricedAIO computer sitting wide open with some windows on it for failed updates and dead KB/mouse batteries, with its screen on. Here's how the conversation went with me and the person who mostly works at that office.
Turns out, yep. Screen burn was really bad, I could make out most of the text in the windows that were left up. And later I find out that it doesn't cost just $200, but $500 for a replacement panel alone. Kill me. [link] [comments]  |
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