"Only bad IT tells people to restart the computer" Tech Support |
- "Only bad IT tells people to restart the computer"
- A Cat-6 cable...
- The classic, "I can't log in!"
- Honestly I have no idea for a title.....
- Email troubles
- The Scanned Keyboard
- When more magic is the solution
| "Only bad IT tells people to restart the computer" Posted: 02 Aug 2018 09:22 AM PDT TL:DR at the bottom. Although I'm an IT Consultant, this didn't happen on the clock at work since I was on vacation at the time, but still a good one nonetheless. Anyways, some good friends came down to visit from out-of-state and we get an Airbnb private place with a couple -of bedrooms and a living area with a big TV. One day after coming back from the beach we decide to watch a movie that my friend has downloaded onto his laptop. He takes the the HDMI cable that's running from the TV and plugs it into his laptop to get the display on the TV but nothing happens. Friend: "It's not coming up." (Messes with a few settings. Unplugs and re-plugs the cord in.) Me: (IT mode kicks in). "Try Windows + P and select duplicate." (I'm walking over to make sure he's doing it right.) Friend: "Nope not working either." (I'm looking to make sure the TV's on and that its set to the correct HDMI.) Me: "Go into the display settings on your laptop and see if it even detects the TV." (Nothing shows in there either.) As all of this is happening, I notice his computer is unusually slow for a decent gaming laptop. Takes a few moments for a simple display settings screen to come up. I think to myself that the next quickest step would be to do a reboot. Me: "You know what? Go ahead and reboot your computer." (Friend gets unusually annoyed at this request.) Friend: "What?! No Dude.. Only bad IT tells people to restart the computer. There is some reason this is not working!" (He proceeds to ramble on how at his job, the 'bad' IT people will always tell people to reboot.) Me: (Now insulted) "Actually, good IT will know when its appropriate to reboot and now is the time". (He reluctantly agrees to do it but still annoyed about doing it.) Me: (Still insulted) "There is a reason 'turning it off, turning it on' is a thing, and its because it fixes a lot of weird issues!" We notice during the reboot that Windows is doing long updates which is a hint that he is not shutting down enough. According to him, he mostly just keeps his laptop asleep and closed when not using it. I may have a small thread of doubt that there is a 5% chance it still wont work and its like a bad display card or the TV HDMI port is busted but I'm confident the reboot will do the trick. Me: "When was the last time you shut this thing down?" Friend: "Maybe once every few weeks." (I'm thinking to myself. No wonder his sh\* ain't working.*) After finishing its updates the moment of truth arrives and unsurprisingly, to me at least, the TV immediately gets the display on it right at the log in screen. Friend: (Looking somewhat defeated.) "Ugh! Why does that fix it? It makes no sense!" (Keep in mind at work I don't get to be this blunt with users and I have to do everything with a grin on my face no matter how stupid it is so now I begin to teach a hard lesson. Also keep in mind that this particular friend loves to boast about his skills at his job nonstop and all the stuff he does so I get a little 'teachy' with him here.) Me: (This may not be exactly verbatim) "Because keeping it on long enough will cause system background stuff to gradually jump ship and stop working. Typically a reboot is the quickest and easiest way to get the operating system back to normal function. You need to shut it down at least once in a while. Also... only egotistical IT will 'try' and fix an issue like this by wasting everyone's time and screwing with the settings for hours on end instead of trying a reboot." (I said all of this with a stern glare and stern voice but it felt good.) We proceed to watch the movie with no hard feelings. It felt good to show a little of my 'expertise' considering this particular friend talks non-stop about all the stuff he does at work and how good he is at his job and always talking about the programs he creates. I was incredibly insulted when someone who likes to boast about their career and skills insults mine so I pretty much threw the book at him during this whole fiasco. TL:DR - Friend plugs laptop into TV. No display comes up. Tell him to reboot. He gets mad and tells me only bad IT people recommend that. I get insulted. He reboots, and screen comes up on the TV. He sheepishly listens to me while I teach him a lesson about how IT is more about finding the best and quickest solution for the issue rather than assuming it can be done in some longer time consuming manner. We both move on, forget about the fiasco, and continue being friends. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 06:43 PM PDT A cautionary tale. I don't work in IT, but have used home computers for a long, long time. Coded 6502 and BASIC for a while. Even wrote some utility programs at work. At least I had the sense to realise I was only a fair amateur... ( KISS, no spaghetti code, REM and renumber, user interface says 'Please', 'Thank You', 'Sorry' and 'Pass n of m'.) Our home network is hard-wired because the old house-bricks eat any signal that is not 'line of sight' to an access point. The cable modem on this upstairs desk feeds a nice, dumb, metal-cased 8-way switch box, which feeds two PCs and an old HP all-in-one printer. Cables wander off to the rest of the house. Upstairs, there's a modern all-in-one A3 printer, a 'wide body'. Downstairs, concentrated by a couple of dumb 5-way switch boxes, there are a bunch of IP cameras, an old router/extender re-purposed as a switch+WAP, and a high-end Blu-Ray player. The latter had a wireless dongle, but the data rate was terrible. One spare cable later, it's happy. So, middle of the evening, I'm working on my desk computers when family shout up that the Blu-Ray player has lost the network. Takes me a few minutes to confirm the correct menu options are still set, and there really is no connectivity. Takes me a little longer to notice some of the usual blinken lights on the switch+WAP don't. But the power is on. Power off, mutter, mutter, mutter, power on. Self diagnostic blinkies mostly okay. The switcher is talking to downstream stuff, but ... Fine. Back at desk, I open Chrome browser, access the switcher. Well, I tried. No network access. I've Internet access, that's okay. I run the IP scanner. That says that I've lost the downstairs stuff. Has upstairs switcher glitched ? I can see the cables are all in place, but the one heading downstairs has a dark status blinky. Power off, mutter, mutter, mutter, power on. Self diagnostic blinkies mostly okay. The switcher is talking to other downstream stuff, but not the downstairs cable... Thus began four hours of hapless trouble-shooting, often escorted by our four tabby cats. Three spotty, one swirly, all free-spirits. And no, none of them had chewed on a cable or peed up a switcher. Or coughed a fur-ball into something expensive. Not this time... Come 2 AM, I am slumped at desk. I've run out of things to try. The cable heading down-stairs was clipped to picture rails, ran under carpets and furniture, would take a miserable week to demount and replace. My free-lying 'proof of concept' cable had been a grade-A trip hazard. It even got me ! Never again, I'd been told. The cats come to offer their sympathy. Up and down the desk, around and around and around. They love watching modem and switcher blinken lights. Boss cat reaches a paw, extends a claw, tags a Cat-6's clip. Out comes the plug. NOW I understand. I run down-stairs, prepare three fresh bowls of catfood. Then I go back to my desk and carefully unplug, firmly replace EVERY network cable I can reach. Turns out several were unlatched, but one had crept just enough to disconnect. Yes, that one... Blinken lights resume. Network restored. Stagger off to bed while calling myself every sort of stupid ijit... [link] [comments]  |
| The classic, "I can't log in!" Posted: 02 Aug 2018 03:30 PM PDT This is something that will always stick with me, and I'm glad I found this sub so I can share it with y'all. It was about 3 years ago- I got hired onto an entry desktop support position at a call center office, and my boss had me coming in for the morning shift to handle the easy morning stuff. The morning shift would only be myself, and the tasks were simple things like unlocking/resetting passwords, reimaging PCs and walking the sales floor to make sure things were greased up and running before the rest of the team came. In the early mornings, this call center holds training classes and orientation sessions for their new hires. Now, this one particular morning, I received a call from one of the trainers, we'll call him David. I would bump into David every now and then during my floor walks, and he seemed to know what he was doing. Mind you, I was still a noob, trying to read out how the people were, how the flow of the office was, etc. So David calls me and says that one of his agents can't log in. I do the usual, ask for the agent's username and reset their password. He insists that the agent has tried multiple times, and is still not able to log in. Now, I'm not seeing that the account is locked in AD, so I asked for the computer name so I can remote over to check. He says he doesn't know the computer name and if I could just come to the training room to help because he's busy. I figured why not since there's not much action happening at 5AM besides YouTube on my monitor. I head into the training class, and David's running around trying to help all the new folks, then glances over at me. He waves me down and leads me over to the agent. David - "Yea, she's the one that can't log in, help her out please." Myself - "Alright lets see, may you go ahead and try logging in..." The agent, early 20s, proceeds to enter her credentials. Typing in her username and password, one key after another with her index finger. I was told by my supervisor, that this office has a high attrition rate, and now I could see why. After the agent typed in her username on that crisp Windows 7 login screen, she lifts her right hand over to firmly hold onto the mouse, then moving it down to click on the password field. Of course, in my mind, I'm just saying press Tab, but that'd be too easy. She goes on to type in her password, and then once again, gets a hold of the mouse and gracefully hovers that there cursor over the 'Cancel' button and clicks on it with finesse. During this moment, time seriously slowed down so much, I could hear my neck creak and my teeth grind. I didn't believe that actually just happened, I thought it was a mistake, so I had her input her credentials again. We run it back once more, and AGAIN, she hovers over 'Cancel.' I had to cut in and say, 'No no no no....click on the arrow.' All of this, and no password reset nor an account unlock was needed. I glanced over at David, and he didn't care at what had just happened. He only said, "Awesome, she's logged in, great!" and moved on. I learned a lot from that day, and that office. I also learned very much that there were more trainers like David. All in all, lots of tales, but that one tops it for me at that office. Thanks for reading. [link] [comments]  |
| Honestly I have no idea for a title..... Posted: 02 Aug 2018 09:53 AM PDT I am the sole IT support for 3 sites and 120 people. Tuesday morning I noticed a WAP not "connected" to our system and did some basic troubleshooting from offsite, we use Unifi so there are a couple of little things I can do to try and solve the issue but unfortunately no joy. Jacks are above desk level! 1 jack and cable for WAP (yellow cable) 1 jack and cable for user desktop/laptop (green cable) (this user somehow keeps deleting the corporate WiFi and going to the guest WiFi!) I trace the cable from the WAP to her laptop!!! User: well someone took my Ethernet so I used this one Me: why would you unplug from the wall jack and plug that end in to your laptop? User: I don't know So I unplug the Ethernet from the laptop and plug back in to the proper wall jack, boom WAP is comes alive. IT people will ALWAYS have jobs available! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 09:15 AM PDT We finally moved all of our email services to Exchange/Office 365. The final migration was this past weekend, which means service accounts can be their own Exchange accounts now that are added separately to email clients (most service accounts are permission-based by a list of users, and will automatically show up as a second inbox without any extra steps; some were created as a secondary account based on the need). My manager stopped by my desk this morning and asked me to call someone in the President's Office, let's call her AA for Administrative Assistant. I was a bit a confused because I was already working on a different ticket for AA, even if it was for a different computer this person sometimes mentions multiple issues while she's on the phone with you. I call AA and ask to remote in to see what's happening. As she's explaining what's happening, she also sends me the error message she got.
I looked at the error message, looked at what she was doing, and almost immediately figured it out. She had her email, Old Secretary (OS) which went through our pop server and New Secretary (NS), which went through Exchange. It was trying to send through the OS and she didn't change the "From" option. I couldn't just remove the OS account because there was some mail saved locally in that account that needed to be moved to Exchange, so I named it appropriately, so that she knew which inbox was old and new, but this didn't reflect on the "From" field in a new email. Even when I showed her how to distinguish between them (the old one had her name on it, the new one had Secretary), she said she understood but didn't seem to. I asked her to try sending the email again, and either it would go through with no problem and they'd receive it, or it wouldn't again and they wouldn't know an email was being sent. She said she'd test it again and call me back. Once she called me back, she did the same thing with trying to send from the old account. I had to show her again how to change it, then I figured out it was defaulting to that because she was in the OS folder. I explained this to her and recommended being in the email she intended to send from, when sending a new email. I think she understood this time. We all know that users lie, but is there a rule for users that don's listen even when you show them the issue? [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2018 04:57 AM PDT This story comes from my old man, a dev with 30+ years of experience. At the time, he'd justs started working a new job, one that he's now been at for close to 20 years. At the time, he and the vp (his boss) split tech support duties. One day, he was walking past one of their copiers, one of those big Xerox machines they had back then and that some of us still support now. One of the secretaries had taken a keyboard, flipped it on its face, and was scanning it. My old man asked her what she was doing, to which she answered that she would scan the keyboard, take the print out, and learn how to type. My dad smiled, and walked away, as he saw the mirror image of the keyboard print out. [link] [comments]  |
| When more magic is the solution Posted: 02 Aug 2018 01:13 AM PDT Since you guys enjoyed my previous story i'd thought i'd chuck another one in here for good luck. Some of you have encountered the (in)famous "Tech Aura". That subtle invisible field around some people that causes misbehaving tech to straighten up and look smart just by being near whatever it is that is giving you grief. This isn't really a story about tech aura, but something on a similar wavelength. Another day at the local fix-it shop, tackling anything from simple 'ware clean-ups to complete overhauls. We did mostly computer stuff but sometimes we took on special cases. This is about one of those special cases. Some guy had dropped off a two, maybe three, year old 50gb mp3 player/portable drive combination that was dead as a doorknob. Again I was the only one not elbow deep in hardware guts so I got the dubious honor of poking and prodding it to see if we could scare it back to life or at least recover the data from it. Then a thought struck me. When all else fails we IT folks tend to joke around about sacrifices and dark IT gods. Guess it couldn't hurt to give it a try before I condemned the thing to the bin of lost hopes, bad dreams and unsalvageable tech. It was the work of moments to swipe a blank A4 from the printer, draw a decent pentagram on it and put the offending mp3 player in the middle. I grabbed the "killer cord", a straight 120v-to-modular-charger one of the guy had made as a joke, folded my hands into the sign of the cog, recited some stuff about the glorious machine spirit (yay for being a Warhammer 40.000 nerd!) and plugged in the killer cord. SNAP CRACKLE HISS I yanked out the killer cord before it could start a fire and was about to toss the mp3 player when I figured I'd try to turn it on a final time. One press on the ON button and I almost dropped it out of shock when the device booted up with a jaunty start-up jingle. It worked. Somehow it worked. TL;DR: When it doubt, make a sacrifice and add More Magic. [link] [comments]  |
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