"I'm not going to get on my hands and knees, I went to college!" Tech Support |
- "I'm not going to get on my hands and knees, I went to college!"
- "My .pdf files have turned into acrobats!"
- More from Aviation Maintenance: The Interview
- Have you tried clicking "Ok"?
- The rules don't apply to me
- I'm not tech support, you are!
- When starting the remote session is the hardest part of the call.
- The best way to communicate with a major company... through a completely random user!
- The "old" laptop won't login
- Go-figure(ation).
- It's never fun job hunting
- "My Laptop is slow! You must get me a new one!"
| "I'm not going to get on my hands and knees, I went to college!" Posted: 20 Apr 2018 09:10 AM PDT Tech: Thank you for calling XYZ Help Desk, can I have your employee ID number please? User: Umm...I'm not sure, wired I think. Tech: Is it a laptop or a desktop? User: A desktop. Tech: Can you check to make sure the cable is plugged in to the computer? User: I'm sure it is. I don't need to check. You know, my last desktop burned up. The powersupply went bad and it caught fire. Tech: Sorry to hear that - did you get a new computer or is this the same computer? User: No, this is a completely new computer. It just doesn't want to connect to the network. Tech: Can you check to make sure the cable is plugged in? User: Well, the computer's set on the floor - I don't need to check it, I'm sure it's plugged in. Tech: We just need to verify the cable is plugged in, I couldn't find your computer on the network when I searched. User: Look, I went to college, OK. I didn't spend more than 4 years of my life to get down on my hands and knees, and crawl around to make sure a cable, that I'm sure is already plugged in, is plugged in. Tech: Can you please check - if it's not plugged in, or came loose, it will help in getting you connected. User: audible sigh Tech: I'm not sure about the color of the cable. Does it look like a phone jack on the end? User: I'm not sure - I don't know what a phone jack looks like. Tech: Is it a plastic square with a tab? User: No, it's a plastic square, but it has like a hook on it. Tech: Is there a place it can plug into in the back of your computer? User: I don't know. Tech: Can you look. User: audible sigh Tech: Can you check if you have network connectivity? Can you get on the Internet? User: Oh, yes, I'm online now. Why did the cable come out? It was working yesterday? Tech: I'm not sure why the cable came out, did you feel it snap into place when you put it in now? User: I don't remember. Anyway, I'm online now, so that's all that matters. Thank you. [link] [comments]  |
| "My .pdf files have turned into acrobats!" Posted: 20 Apr 2018 04:14 PM PDT Long-time lurker, new poster here. Got a job a month ago or so at a small company and I finally get to post something.
So as I was about to leave for the day, someone came into the queue. Looked at the ticket that had the post title as the description.
Pretty easy to tell what the user wanted; they wanted to switch the default .pdf program from Acrobat to whatever they were using before. So I asked the user to save some time:
So I go through the default programs. Only Adobe Acrobat is a 'dedicated' PDF program. No problem, they must really like using a web browser as their .pdf browser. Or maybe they used Word? I set off to figure that out.
Having gone through the list, I set it back to Acrobat seeing as that's the 'best' option for now until I figure out what they were using. I click open another .pdf file on their screen to verify that the default viewer was set to Adobe Acrobat.
[link] [comments]  |
| More from Aviation Maintenance: The Interview Posted: 20 Apr 2018 01:33 PM PDT A recent Ask Reddit topic about interviews that went badly reminded me of this little gem of a tale. At the end of the day, I don't blame my interviewers for their attitudes a bit, as had I known what I was about to walk into, I'd have Noped out of there as fast as I could. As it is, $PioneeringTechCompany sure has made some amazing advances and, if not for the wife and family I now have from staying here and at $AviationCompany, I'd have still jumped at the opportunity to work there… After getting out of the Army in the fall of 2009, I was able to last a whole 24 hours before reenlisting into my local National Guard—in part because I needed health insurance, and in part because I needed some sort of job. It took me another couple of months and many, many applications and resumes submitted before I landed a job at $AviationCompany, and even then it was just for an "Interior Support Mechanic" position—basically fixing things like seats, walls, lavatories and carpet for $12 an hour. It wasn't a great position, but it was a foot in the door. Patience paid off ten months later when I was hired into an actual Maintenance Technician position for our Intermediate Maintenance group. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that I'd been very busy, right up until I received the promotion, submitting my resume to various companies across the country…resumes I'd forgotten I'd sent. The call came in on a sunny May morning. The previous fall I'd finally gotten the surgery to fix my torn meniscus (30% removal) that I'd been running on for the entirety of my Army career and after a long heart-to-heart with my Sergeant Major had decided the best thing for my National Guard unit would be for me to not choose to re-enlist. Thus, that morning I had just arrived at the motorpool for their portion of the outprocessing checklist when my phone rang.
We swiftly hammered out the details; they would be supplying me with a ticket on $SouthernHospitality airline, meal per diem and even a rental car and hotel room. Needless to say, I was excited to get an opportunity to interview with a company that's done some amazing and crazy stuff in the Aerospace industry—excited enough I was willing to entertain leaving $AviationCompany despite my promotion several months prior. The following week, I hopped on the provided flight, got the rental car (A Mazda 6—it was really, really sweet…) and proceeded to drive…and drive…and drive…and drive. Eventually I arrived in town and got directions to their facility which was still another fifteen minutes away. Being that I prefer to scope out where I'm going in advance, I took a drive on out to scout the site. As I approached, I knew I had found the place—there was an engine on a test stand and I could see the exhaust plume and feel the rumble as they tested it—it was a powerful monster of an engine, bigger than anything I'd worked on before. I giddily returned to my room and prepared for the interview, the rumble still vibrating in my bones. The next morning I arrived early on site. I had purchased some new steel-toed shoes so that I could take a promised tour of the facility's work floor and dressed as suggested—casual business of collared shirt and jeans. $HRLady greeted me at the door and led me back to a slightly cramped conference room in which I would spend the vast majority of the next few hours. She sat me down, asked the mandatory not-a-psycho questions and about why I wanted to work for $PTC. I explained to her my fascination with what they were doing and the excitement I had felt yesterday scouting and seeing the engine fire. The first hitch, however, was when she started asking questions about compensation.
She left the room and about ten minutes later, three very, very sour looking men entered.
Again, another question, fired at me more than asked, followed by an answer attempt, followed by another question lobbed. As we continued to talk, I could tell these guys were getting angrier and angrier, but I couldn't figure out why. Finally, after an hour of pummeling me, they got up and left. I had never had such an awful interview in my life, and I couldn't understand why it had turned so hostile, so quickly. $HRLady eventually returned and sat back down, looking visibly uncomfortable.
The penny dropped.
I sat in stunned silence for a minute. Here I was, some barely-thirty 'kid', fresh from the Army still, working for $AviationCompany and making more than they were already, asking for more than what they make with better hours. No wonder they hated me the moment they saw me.
And with that, I left, no tour, nothing, drove back to the airport, flew home, and never bothered submitting for the per diem—I felt rather bad about wasting their time and they about wasting mine. As for those leads? I really, really hope all the work they've been putting in has paid off for them, because $PTC is real good at making the headlines now. They deserve it. Enjoy the stories? Here are the rest! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2018 05:00 PM PDT I'm working IT support for one department of our local university. Yesterday morning I get an e-mail from my $boss "Somebody needs to check the computer in the seminar room in $otherBuilding", before I got to the office. I get to the office, check the missed calls list on my phone, and call back the first number on the list. It's the $secretary of the institute in $otherBuilding, who tells me that they told my boss that $idiotProf told them that the computer in the seminar room crashed. So I walk over to the secretary's office, and go to the room with them. I move the mouse on the computer, screen lights up, kiosk user is logged in, everything seems to be working correctly. So I go to $idiotProf, who's in the computer lab next door, and ask them to briefly explain what happened. $idiotProf: "I started PowerPoint, opened my presentation and all of a sudden a thousand windows popped up. Then I told $otherProf about the problem and they did something and then there was something about updates. Then I went over to the computer lab to continue my lecture. You'll have to ask $otherProf what they did. Also please call me around noon and tell me what the problem was." So I tried to find $otherProf in their office but they weren't there. I went back to our office and tried to call $otherProf, who tells me the only thing they did was restart the computer. [Fast forward to noon] I call $idiotProf and explain to them that it should be working again. They tell me that when the* connect their flash drive the PC crashes. Concerned that their flash drive might be contaminated, I ask them to meet me at said computer in 10 minutes. As I arrive I let them show me exactly what they did. $idiotProf plugs in their flash drive, AutoPlay windows opens, they open their presentation, start it and lo and behold, a PowerPoint message window pops up: "Power Point has detected that your graphics card may not be configured properly...", with a single button "Ok". If you click that, the presentation works. tl;dr $idiotProf was so scared by cryptic PowerPoint message that they thought the computer had crashed. If they had clicked "Ok", everything would've worked fine. The way they chose caused five people in total 1h of pointless work and involved two calls and two on-site visits. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2018 01:48 PM PDT LTL, and all that. So, I used to work in ITS Training for a large health system and have fortunately moved on to greener pastures. My replacement isn't fully up to spec on all her requirements yet so I often get pulled in to respond to certain things as I helped develop several of the procedures that are followed. Normally we try to have software training conducted by the trainers in our department as they are most familiar with proper workflow as well as the lesson plans that have been developed to make sure that new staff get trained properly. In certain circumstances where geography can make that more difficult, we have certain people in the department who have been trained on the proper material and were at one point given my blessing to complete the training. We also give them a EUPA (End User Proficiency Assessment) to ensure that they know the material that they should know. Assuming that they get an 80% or higher, their access gets activated. With all that background, the cast of characters: $me - former "Principal Trainer" $NPT - new "Principal Trainer" $Trainer - In House ITS Trainer $PM - pissy manager $SU - Super User who conducted training $STU - Student/Staff that was trained $TM - Training Manager (for simplicity sake) $PACS - Where radiology images are stored $EMR - Electronic Medical Record When we first went out to this location to start this Super User training process, we were less than pleased with one of the candidates that they proposed (had been working for less than a year) who was extremely nervous with the material that she was trying to present and didn't have it "down pat" by any means. I understand being nervous, but it was beyond that. The other two had been around for several years and generally knew what they were doing. We provided them with lesson plans to teach from along with other materials such as training logins so they can get into a non-production system to conduct training from so that they aren't touching real patient data. We go back down for a follow-up when they actually have new hires to train so that we can proctor them and make sure everything goes smoothly and give them our blessing (we had already told them that the greenhorn was a no go). The person who is conducting the training is ready to go into production and didn't have any lesson plans and just sort of did his own thing. I wasn't necessarily alarmed when I didn't see lesson plans as I don't have them in front of me either because, well, I wrote them, but I've also taught other lesson plans that I didn't write from memory because I used to stand in front of a classroom all day and teach them. Not off to a great start, but the guy knows what he's doing so we give him the go ahead and say use the lesson plan next time... fast forward to this week: $PM emails $Trainer and says that they tried to train her and her login isn't working, $Trainer replies and copies in $NPT, $TM, and $me and says that her ID will not be active until she is trained which shouldn't be an issue because they should be training in the training environments. One hour later $PM emails and says a very short "Training Finished. Can her logins be made live please?" I reply to our internal group and say make sure that you get the EUPA from her first as that's the protocol (this manager and I have had issues with seeing eye to eye before and this particular location is known for thinking that rules don't apply to them). $Trainer replies indicating such to her and $PM replies with a quick "Seriously?". None of us reply, and 3 hours later we get a scanned document of the test, "Let me know when this poor woman can use $PACS/$EMR". Before anyone goes about starting the documentation to get her ID activated, I decide to look at the test. She needed an 80% to pass and got a 60%. Mind you, anyone who gives one of these tests is supposed to make sure that they pass the exam, however, she didn't even come close. These aren't trick questions, they are extremely basic. I tell $TM that he is going to need to need to talk to her. He tries calling $PM twice and gets no answer. At this point, it's 4:45 on a Friday afternoon and I am going home for the weekend. I hope the rush order on this wasn't due to her new hire working over the weekend, because she's going to have a hard time doing anything if she can't login to the $EMR. This isn't the first time that we've had people say they urgently need to get training done as this person will be working overnight/over the weekend by themselves. Who hires a person and expects them to work by themselves the same week that they started? What if something goes wrong and one of the numerous moving pieces that you have to get in order before they can work doesn't line up as you expected? (P.S. the super user who trained her told us that he didn't know that he was going to be training anyone before 9 o'clock this morning). </rant> [link] [comments]  |
| I'm not tech support, you are! Posted: 20 Apr 2018 12:33 PM PDT Just remembered a great (lol) moment from this batshit crazy week at work. So we "run" a website, but we basically just update daily announcements, post pictures, etc. A coworker comes in fuming about getting more exposure for her announcement. She comes in my office...
She storms out. [link] [comments]  |
| When starting the remote session is the hardest part of the call. Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:05 PM PDT I work in a company which deals in MFPs. I'm a tech, so basically I deal with what nobody else in the tech world wants to - printers. A lot of the times, the client's problem can be solved remotely - e.g. it's a permissions or config problem. We use screenconnect to start a remote session. In this story, I'll be $Tech, and the customer will be $User $Tech: <Name> speaking, how can I help? $User: Um...yes, I can't print. It was fine this morning and now I can't print! $Tech: OK, if you like I'll start off a remote session and dial into your computer and take a look. $User: Um...okay. $Tech: OK, I need you to go to a web browser of your choice and go to <company>.screenconnect.com $User: Okay... I hear her furiously type, swear, then hear the telltale clack clack clack of backspace being hit. She types again. $User: It doesn't work! All I get is google! Sigh She's typed the address into a search bar. $Tech: Try again please? Make sure it's going into the address bar. $User: What was it? <company>.screenconnector.com? $Tech: No, no, just screenconnect $User: Okay, okay. more typing. Still nothing! $Tech: I'll send you a join link in an email. What's your email address, please? $User: Huh? $Tech: Email address, please. $User: Oh! recites email I send her the invite link, and we wait a few minutes. She manages to connect, then it starts to download the client. $User: What's it doing? It's asking me if I want to run it? $Tech: Yes, you want to run it. $User: Now it's asking me if I want to let it make changes to my computer? What kind of changes? I don't want it to change anything! $Tech: It won't, trust me. She lets it run, and I manage to connect. I discover that her printer is fine, but her laptop was connected to the guest network, not the work network where the printers are. I change it over, and everything is OK. It took ten minutes of run-around trying to get her to enter a URL, just for me to do a ten-second job. I enjoy this job, but sometimes people amaze me. [link] [comments]  |
| The best way to communicate with a major company... through a completely random user! Posted: 20 Apr 2018 11:01 AM PDT $CC - Company I recently joined as a T1 User calls in. Turns out that $RG's overglorified search function for their knowledge base was kaput, no search results showing for anything. This is apparently powered by $TPC, used by $RG exclusively and points to $CC's servers in some cases. You may see where this is going already. Apparently there was quite an email chain - or rather, five different ones - going on about this already between $TPC's support, $RG's general staff and admins, and at one point us. They're trying to figure out who's servers/software/etc are at fault. This has apparently been going on since yesterday morning, which makes it bizarre it isn't already solved because this search was pretty damn important for $RG. $TPC are apparently now pointing fingers at us, hence the call. The unfortunate user, henceforth $UU, is a completely random non-technical $RG employee who all of this information is going through... for some reason. I mean her manager is involved in all these chains and presumably knows more, he could have called... but no? One of $RG's more technically minded admins maybe? $TPC could even have gotten in contact directly, god knows that'd have been helpful? Because she didn't really know enough about anything to explain it aside from the basic issue of the broken search, I pretty much tell the user "yeah forward us the emails, I'll get $DM to look into it". $DM being It is then I realise quite what had been picked up, as I watched the email chains come into our inbox. This was five randomly interspersed long chains that split and re-merged randomly, two of which were actually sent as attachments to two different ones, with no one I recognise involved... aside from one person, one of our T2s who appears to have basically gone "uhh why are you involving us with this? Doesn't look like it could be our side that's at fault". I asked him on IM, he doesn't even remember it, so apparently not much of a concern. As you'd expect, because it involved a lot of people and rapidly switched recipients, the bulk of the chains were actually oversized auto-signatures and "please save the environment by not printing this email!" postscripts, which didn't help readability but at least made it less daunting than it first appeared. After spending 10 minutes skimming through them and sort of getting the gist, I go up to $DM - "check email folder, things exploding, thanks". I went back to taking calls after $DM questioned me a little and I pretty much shrugged. He spends 20 mins reading through it scratching his head, then he gets to calling our teams who might be involved. First the Networks team, then Systems Management, then Infrastructure. We'll figure out for sure what's going on! An hour later, despite there being <10 of us in the call queue, I happen to be the one who picks it up. Oh my, it's $UU again! Oh, what's that... we're to completely stop our investigation? That exact wording? Okay... why? You don't know, you've got another email chain and your manager just told you to let us know? Is the search working now then? No? Okay... can you forward us said email chain? To be fair to $UU, it really wasn't their fault, they were just the middleman who had nothing to do with the situation all things considered. Although we never got forwarded that last email chain, so we were left even more puzzled. I went up to $DM to share the news, he had an "uhh... okay..?" reaction, as did the people he informed. I mean in the end it's not hard to figure out someone at $TPC probably went "oh hell, it is our fault! Quick, get them to let $CC know before they figure that out!", but it was just such a weird experience. The best part is, because this was all done via email and speech, no one ever actually ever logged a ticket. I probably should have made one then insta-resolved it just for documentation purposes but spending ten minutes writing it up instead of handling calls wasn't worth it, especially when I barely knew anything overall. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2018 07:34 AM PDT I have nobody to share this with today as both my Manager and Co-worker are out on vacation, so now y'all have to suffer through this with me.
It's been a rather normal morning. I got my coffee and started
$GuppyZed uses $CompanyEmail! It's not very effective...
[link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 20 Apr 2018 02:58 PM PDT I work esclations for an ISP...
note: Our system is a little bit evil. If you try to bypass the automated system by asking for a live person, it will send you to a billing agent. If someone has a technical issue and are the impatient type, they have always gone through at least two transfers by the time they get esclated to me.
I sigh and am not even bothering to look at my monitors now. I stand up and stare at the Twisted Metal poster my boss has hung just behind my desk. I seriously want to be playing that game right that second. I compose myself again
At some point in my little speach she hung up. When I don't know because I was staring out a window at a cloudy sky. TL:DR- Apparently an email program crashing is equivalant to the end of the world leaving me wanting to play a game about ending the world through derby demolition. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 21 Apr 2018 01:27 AM PDT It's been a while since I posted here. Most of my tales come from my previous job which ended when I more or less got fed up with the idea that the management team became half the people who worked for the company. Towards the end of 2016, they were pushing and basically making my life a pain because I without thinking pissed off one of the 3 General Managers and in front of witnesses said No, the issue is your blindly submitting support tickets and without thinking was demanding a change in workflow that would make closing off tickets require a response from the people who submitted them. So yeah, I got sick of that job. I lasted about 3 months after the IT Manager left. All up I was probably unemployed for close to 4 months and when asked in interviews, I'd explain I was taking the time to get some qualifications. During this time I'd completed Cisco CCNA which honestly isn't that hard but gives a good basis for understanding for troubleshooting which I feel was helpful. I also did something called ITIL which I don't believe anyone is a thing in the US, but is a framework for service providers. Not specifically ISPs but really anything dealing with people. #1 Promising lead #2 What looked like a Promising lead
I figure get my foot in the door. Move up from there. I say I'm interested he says he'll call later in the week about lining up an interview.
I mentioned being signed up to do ITIL in the very near future and he said it was a great cert to have.
The rest of the conversation just becomes clearer and clearer that I don't want to deal with this person. I had a few more dead end interviewers which I basically did purely for the practice, get used it and come across more confident when I go for the jobs I do want. One time I won't even call it a lead. Recruiter got my to talk to a small group, the instructions on where to go actually gave me the wrong address. I knocked on the door of a house thinking their office was a house that had been renovated and turned into office (Maybe?) THEN there's the deciding question, that I assume was made up on the spot. I'm not even sure I remember it correctly because no matter how I think about it it doesn't sound right.
I don't know how to answer.
This information has not helped me.
The question fell flat, he didn't know what answer he was looking for and it made the remainder of the interview a little odd. I've got a few more, might look at writing those up before I head off to bed. [link] [comments]  |
| "My Laptop is slow! You must get me a new one!" Posted: 20 Apr 2018 01:08 AM PDT This happened just now. I can't not share it with you all! Hope the formatting is okay... $me - fairly obvious, your's truly! $user - Older employee. Actually an Aircraft Engineer. So $user calls me now complaining that his laptop is incredibly slow and he's demanding a new one right now or he's going to his manager to complain! Oh and he also needs his Java updated. Java update is fine, needs admin credentials to do anyway. I waltz down to take a look. Notice the machine is incredibly slow so I open Task Manager to check for anything hogging resources etc. Hit the performance tab and see something that I've only ever seen on a server... An uptime of 310 days! (Proof - https://imgur.com/a/Bk6xFk6)
User closes the lid of his laptop. Thats it.
Needless to say the laptop is performing great now after a proper shut down cycle and even updated his Java! [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment