Password Complexity Requirements Tech Support |
- Password Complexity Requirements
- The Printer won't print.
- The tale of three IT Auras
- Can we get back at zipping files with password
- Is the network down?
- Can you be more vague?
- keeping ahead of the Jones'
- The time a standing desk broke printing.
- Common sense and egos - Developers know best
- What does placement have to do with it
| Password Complexity Requirements Posted: 27 Apr 2018 06:15 PM PDT I work remote first level tech support for the employees of a large company. Everything from password resets to network outages to Fitbit troubleshooting is in my wheelhouse. When I drove to work today, I did not know that I was a couple hours away from putting my job at risk. It was the second call of the day. Run of the mill password reset. This guy's password was expired, and I could tell from our brief conversation so far that he was not good with computers. That's fine. I used to teach an A+ course, so I am very comfortable talking tech with laymen. After obtaining remote access to his machine, I went about resetting his password, and came to the fateful change password screen. This screen is the bane of my existence sometimes. The company I support has a laundry list of password complexity requirements, and some of their employees take 15 minutes of hand-holding to get it right. Not this user, though. This user was unique. I had vastly overestimated his abilities. 20 minutes later, and I'm at wit's end. I have explained the requirements multiple times. I have asked him to write the password down on paper, and went line by line with the requirements, asking him if his password met each one. He said it did. I could not figure out what the problem was. I had no choice but to breach security. I had to see what this guy was typing. We only do this when all else fails. It's a last ditch effort before investigating if there is a problem in the domain. I looked at his password. It started with the number 5 followed by a sufficient number of lowercase letters and a symbol. I told him that the password looked fine, except that it didn't have an uppercase letter. What this guy said next would drastically lower the bar for the stupidest thing anyone has ever said to me. "But...the number 5 is capital" I almost broke the sound barrier with the quickness at which I hit the mute button. I laughed so hard that my coworkers started to become concerned. The entire office went quiet. Everyone was staring at me. I took so long to compose myself that the user almost hung up. I stood up and locked eyes with each of my coworkers one by one, trying to gain some moral support for one of the hardest sentences I have ever had to say without laughing. I unmuted the phone. "The number 5 cannot be capital, and it does not meet the complexity requirement for an uppercase letter." I didn't make it. The last half of my response was said through a long, drawn out laugh. I had to mute the phone immediately after saying it because everyone around me started laughing at the ridiculous sentence I had just uttered into the concerned quiet of our small office. After calming them down, I unmuted the phone, apologized, and, in the most professional voice I could muster, suggested that he capitalize one of the letters. A few minutes later the call was over and I clocked out for a much needed break. On the way out, my boss told me that he was looking forward to the incoming escalation for laughing at a user on a call. I told him to make sure and record that call with his boss. There's nothing like a good laugh at an exit interview. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2018 10:56 AM PDT Had to share this, as I just got back from a 2 1/2 hour round trip visit to a remote office. I little background. I provide helpdesk/desktop/phone/mobile support for 3 out of 11 offices for my company. I work onsite at the largest office and will make visits to the other offices as needed or provide remote login support. This past Tuesday I receive a VM afterhours from one of the remote offices that one of the printers wasn't printing. I log into the printer to check the status and it shows a paper jam. I email the individual back and tell them there is a paper jam and could they or one of their team members clear the jam and try printing again. They emailed me back saying they cleared the jam, but the printer is still not printing. I log back into the printer and see a new status message that says "No paper pickup please press OK". I email the individual back asking them to please check the paper tray's that they do have paper in them and that there is not a stuck piece of paper in the pickup rollers and to press the Go button to clear the message. They email me back, it's still not printing. So I head out to the office to see if there is anything I can do before calling a printer services tech out and I get to the printer and press the Go button that clears the error message and the printer starts printing. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2018 11:33 AM PDT You all have heard countless stories of IT aura fixing things for their users. The mere presence of such individuals solves issues. It's magical ! Rarely do the IT professionals themselves get to experience this magic for their own problems since their own aura is sufficient enough to keep those small critters at bay. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, I got to experience this disturbance in force. My own aura (and my Google-fu skills) were lacking on that fateful day. The characters and objects involved in this gripping tale are as follows: Scene: I'm at my desk, working on $software while resigned to the fact that my $voip was going to be pain today. Specifically, it is crashing on me spectacularly whenever I try to receive an incoming call. What fun! So I do what a responsible person will do after doing some google-fu and finding absolutely nothing related my problem - I file a ticket with IT and $IT guy promises me that he'll drop by in 1-1.5 hour. Awesome ! I get back to my work. Oh hey, there's a ping from $infra guy. He needs help with running the $test, he says it is acting weirdly. I ask him to drop by so that we can debug and he says that he's not yet at work and will be coming in another hour. I think you all see where this is going. When the time comes for us to meet, both $IT and $infra drop by my desk simultaneously with their respective laptops in hand. I'm not that concerned about this simultaneous rendezvous, as I don't need access to my system while helping $infra. So I take over $infra's laptop and $it takes over my desktop. Everyone is happy.
We try to launch it in multiple ways, with different parameters and it works perfectly every time. We discuss about what to do if he faces the same issue in future, and he tries to reproduce the issue, but it never occurs again. We laugh it off. Meanwhile, $it guy is struggling with my machine. He can't get $voip to crash at all. It's working all nicely with a crystal clear sound quality. I agree with $IT guy that if it is working, let's close the ticket. $IT guy asks if he can help with anything else. I tell him all is good with the world. Just before leaving however, he sheepishly asks $me and $infra -
$infra guy verifies the settings are correct (they were) and just launches the $chatapp. It starts up like there was nothing wrong. All three of us are stunned just now realizing the full extent of what happened just now. All of us were struggling with annoying little problems that we ourselves should have been able to solve. In fact, there was apparently nothing wrong with any of our software. $infra's $software ran fine, $my $voip ran fine, $it's $chatapp ran fine. Just not when we ran it ourselves. Until this day I had always blamed this IT aura thing on overlooked details or user stupidity. But I haven't found a reasonable explanation to any of our problems yet ! It just needed the correct person's touch. This was the day I became a believer. This was the day I accepted that IT aura exists. I've seen its beauty and I assure you that it's truly magical. [link] [comments]  |
| Can we get back at zipping files with password Posted: 27 Apr 2018 07:17 AM PDT I work sysadmin at a company outside EU, but that deals with EU customers. Due to regulations coming in force this may, GDPR, we are required to use secure methods to transmit confidential data between us, the client and the main contractor (we subcontract the work from the main contractor). So, the main contractor, asks us to use PGP encryption to deal with it. Fine, let's do it. I went full steam ahead, prepared set of keys (Public and Private), did produce a manual on using gpg4win (my decision for making the life easy on my non-IT colleagues) both on encryption and decryption, teached them how to use it, and we're all set to start using it. Got also the pub_keys from the client and main contractor (they stated that we can use these keys for encryption). I personally try to enforce the usage of encryption to my non-IT colleagues, and it seems good. Within days, both client and main contractor (not those who made the decision to go for encryption, but more like sales/customer ppl) start complaining that they can't open the data we sent, and ask for plain old files. Even going as far as saying:
This despite the fact that the request for using encryption came literally from the boss of the boss of the boss of these persons. My non-IT colleagues were kind of terrified on what to do, and me bluntly telling them to keep using encryption... In the end, since both the client and main contractor didn't deploy encryption/decryption procedures or even tell all the people of the new policy, it was decided to just zip/rar the files with a password. Oh, and the client is a major ISP in an EU country and the main contractor has a global presence in that specific market. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2018 07:11 AM PDT $Me: Me $Dippy: Long-time low-ranking HR drone $Software: Our HR database software
$Me: Hi, this is $me, how can I help? $Dippy: Is the network down? Nobody can do anything over here. (Over here is a remote site about a mile away.) $Me: No, I don't think anything's wrong; hang on while I check. (Basic diagnostics OK, can see everything live on the remote site) $Me: Everything looks fine; what seems to be the problem? $Dippy: Well when I go to $Menuitem.list.item it puts up a screen about needing to get permission to use that part. $Me: Well that menu item is restricted in $Software to supervisors, are you a supervisor? $Dippy: No... Is the network down? (headdesk) $Me: No. Everything is fine. If you need to use that function you need to ask a supervisor to do it for you. $Dippy: Oh, OK. *click*
TIL that a single user being unable to select a restricted function == the whole network is down and nobody can do anything. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2018 07:53 AM PDT So, I get an email from our PoC that just says this "Jimmy, has an issue". Now we have had problems with this PoC being way too vague, as part of her job is to record/report what the initial error is. So we send her an email asking her to explain what the issue is. She says "Talk to Jimmy". This is how it goes down..... Me: "Hi, Jimmy. We herd you have a computer error. Can you please discrive what your experiencing?" Jimmy: "Yes" 10min go by Me: "Can you discrive whats the error is? Try rebooting" Jimmy: "The application ties up then unlocks. Reboting dosnt help" I check the uptime, he hasnt rebooted this in a while Me: "Which application are you referring to? Also what do you mean by 'ties up and unlocks'?" Jimmy: "Yes, that is correct" facepalm Me: "Can we remote into your computer to look at it?" Jimmy: "Not now" Me: "Ok, when would be a good time to do so?" Jimmy: "Dont know...... How long will it take to fix?" Me (internally): What the fuck dude??? You have to give me some information to go on. I dont even know the issue, no less how long it will take to fix it Me: "We will have to look at your computer to determine that" Jimmy: "Can I just call you when I have free time?" Me: "Sorry but this needs to be scheduled" (otherwise users will call us at the most inconvenient time, like 3hrs after we close, then complain that no one answered the phone) PoC: "Nagol93, can you explain why this issue hasnt been resolved yet? Do I need to get Mr.CEO involved?" Me (internally): "Ya, because Jimmy wont tell me whats wrong or let us work on his computer! Also yes, please get your ceo involved. Maybe he will get Jimmy to actually answer my questions" (Also before any of you call me out on how some things are said. I am paraphrasing the emails that were sent, they are not word-for-word accurate) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2018 10:16 PM PDT July or August 1990. I know this because of the details below. But let's back up a little. I'd been a software developer / programmer-analyst for a few years now, and had been playing (commercially) with MS-DOS, actually, PC-DOS since 3.2 (on an IttyBittyMachine PS/2). A year before this tale, I had started working for the (now defunct) US MultiNational |a|n|a|l|o|g| (is that obfuscated enough? ;) and shortly after starting with them received a shiny new VAX-Station 3100 with DECWindowsTM - this was your usual WIMP (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pulldown-menu) style GUI system based on Motif. Something we all take for granted these days, but then was really only the realm of the rich (and could afford a Macintosh) or the fortunate (and their work bought them one). I was, of course, in the latter group. Oh, there was also the 'geek' who could afford an Amiga :) Although, our home PC (Commodore 286 / MS-DOS 3.2) could run GEOWorks Ensemble. Enough background. It was late July or early August 1990, and a friend from church / men's group knew I "worked with computers" and would I come over and help him set up his new PC? Ever It was a brand new PC - not a "genuine" IttyBittyMachine, but a name-brand clone - maybe HolsteinCowComputers? We both pulled the machine out of the box, pulled the 15" CRT (XGA - 1024x768) out of its box and hooked it all together - by (much to his chagrin) reading the documentation. We also connected his new (inkjet? maybe Epson?) printer to the computer as well. We did the "Smoke TestTM" and everything spun up - and DOS 5 loaded and then (automagically) Windows 3.0 launched into the full glory of 256 colours (where values of "full glory" may vary from person to person). We were both impressed. Since I was driving (ever the geek), I started clicking and dragging, and opening stuff, and mousing around like a Boss. Found Program Manager, and then Write, then Calc, then CharMap, then FileManager. Basically took his baby for a test-drive in front of him, explaining each of the tools as I opened then, with a run down of what they might be used for. At some point we loaded the printer drivers for the new printer as well, and did a test print from Write. Now, my friend was a bit of a show-off, and had to have the latest and greatest (hence the new Win3.0 PC) and always wanted to be the 'Jones' that everybody was trying to keep up with. To say he was a little put out that I was driving this beastie like it was second-nature was just a little off putting to him.
He seemed a little cooler after that brief conversation, and suggested that I should get back home to me lovely wife and new-born son. He did come back and ask me to help him sort out some other computer stuff at his office in the city. It was all new, exciting, and fun. tl;dr - when everything new is old again At about the same time, and not really deserving a whole story of its own... I was doing PC consulting for the church I attended. They would ask my opinion, I would give it, they would ignore it and do something else. After all, "free advice is worth every cent". Some weeks later would ask me to come and fix the thing. At which point I would charge them a (nominal) fee (and then put that back in the plate the following Sunday). After a few iterations of this, I said "If you want me to consult on anything, here are my rates" and would invoice them each time they asked my advice (and drop it back in the plate the next Sunday). They started taking my advice seriously! It was costing them money (not a "lot"), and so they decided that the advice was worth paying attention to. Even installed a small thinnet Ethernet network for them to connect two PCs together and share the printer they had. Installed DOS 5 for them on both the machines as well (two licenses, of course). Ah... fun times... edit: formatting - * and ~ [link] [comments]  |
| The time a standing desk broke printing. Posted: 27 Apr 2018 06:11 AM PDT I recently got back into user support from just hardware maintenance. Great change of pace for me. Today we had a very strange issue I doubt we will ever replicate. One of our accountants got a standing desk this week. One of those fancy things that is multiple height and all sorts of other stuff. Facilities maintenance sent their intern (someone's son) over after hours to install the desk and he was kind enough to mount the displays, hook everything up, etc. It's pretty simple to plug in a couple dvi cables. Nobody is gonna complain to not having to mount displays. However, cables got transposed and left became right. Nothing a simple change in control panel can't fix. Then today we get a ticket. Completely unrelated (so we thought) about printing from some of our software. She would walk me through the steps and it would hang after pressing print. Basic troubleshooting was as follows:
When they went to print, another window with a preview popped up. We did not get this window on their normal computer. The fix: open control panel, move the "left" monitor to far right (where it was before the standing desk) in windows. All of a sudden the preview window popped up! We moved it back over and away it went! TL;DR software is not as ambidextrous as it would make you believe. [link] [comments]  |
| Common sense and egos - Developers know best Posted: 27 Apr 2018 10:59 AM PDT This goes back to the mid 90s. (Days of the 486/66) The company I worked for decided to create large databases of sales data, accessible through an Oracle Forms database. For the most part - it worked great. Cue the help desk ticket - whenever a user accessed a particular form, their computer crashed. Checked over the hardware and it all tests fine. There aren't any issues with it that I can reproduce. Developer of the form *INSISTS* the computer must be broken and I need to replace it for this user. Short version of the conversation is: Me: "Does anyone else use this form?" Developer: "No." Me: "Does the computer work on all the other forms?" Developer: "Yes" Me: "Well.. it sounds like maybe it's the form" Developer: "Can't be - the form is fine. You have to replace the computer" Me: "I've tested the system - its good. It always crashes on the same form - makes sense that the form would have an issue right?" Developer: "No, my forms are perfect. Replace the computer" Me: "Can you at least check the form over?" Developer: "No, the form is fine. Replace the PC" Knowing full well the computer was fine - I advise my boss, who talks to the developer's boss, and at the end of that.. you guessed it - I'm replacing the computer. So I do. Brand new out of the box, fresh install of Windows - it's fine. I put it in. Give it a couple days. User: "My computer is crashing on that same form" Me: "Ok - I'll let the developer know to check the form and figure it out" I do.. Developer: "The form is fine - you just have bad computers" Me: "This is a brand new one. I set it up myself, and it works fine - there's nothing wrong with it" Developer: "Well, it's not my form. Fix your computer or replace it" Me: "Can you check the form to rule it out?" Developer: "No, I"m busy" Back to the boss.. who goes to his boss. .and the word comes down.. replace the computer. Sure.. I can do that. Setup and build a 3rd computer, put it in. User: "I still have an issue on that form. My system crashes every time" Me: "I thought you'd be calling. I"ll tell the developer again" I tell boss.. boss tells his boss.. discussions take place, a couple days go by - word comes back that the developer... fixed his form. User calls to say everything is fine now. Actual fix time for the form issue - about 10 mins Actual time for the entire rodeo - 3 weeks [link] [comments]  |
| What does placement have to do with it Posted: 27 Apr 2018 11:07 PM PDT I work techincal escalations for an ISP. Customer calls in that her 2.4 wireless network isn't working and the gui on our website for basic wifi information is showing someone else's network. I verify the url for the gui on our site. She had been on the help page discribing how to use our gui. When she actually gets to our gui, she sees she can activate a guest network, and starts asking questions about how she should go about enabling it. While she is going on about that I switch the 2.4 channel to 3.
I enternally sigh, when we started talking you were still on the help page.
I was already having a bad day and simply trying to explain that the reason 5 exists is because of the exact issue she is having. I adjust the channel to 9. I decide to change direction (please forgive me the second sentence below does not make sense).
Actually I can't. I could be written up for resolution avoidance. I prepare to explain that I could have a team member call her back but it wouldn't be a right away thing and the information wouldn't change.
She hung up TL:DL- Customer cares more about the ascetics of her home than to accept that maybe she was getting accurate information from the tech support agent that was just trying to help her. starts humming what does love have to do with it [link] [comments]  |
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