Why we changed our name from The Help Desk to Tech Support Center Tech Support |
- Why we changed our name from The Help Desk to Tech Support Center
- Irresponsible co-workers and unanticipated hell
- Welcome to Hell: Part III
- I forgot Rule #1 of tech support and paid the price with my time.
- Hello, what is a "surname"?
- Lesson Learned: Check Everything
- I need a laptop
- The old, the new, and the forgotten.
- Tales of the Temps Pt 2: The notepad
- The Magically Powered Projector
- The Bad Intern
- Network crash the night before a big exam - Stress mode activate.
| Why we changed our name from The Help Desk to Tech Support Center Posted: 28 Sep 2018 03:24 PM PDT I used to work as a lead on the help desk for a government installation full of technicians and engineers. I had a call one slow evening from a little girl to our local phone number 555-4357 (555-HELP). She found the number on a post it note on her Mom's computer and thought she'd call in. She needed help with her math homework and since none of our lines were busy I decided to take the call over and give her a hand. It didn't help our average time on call but it was the cutest call I ever got. She was really sharp and just needed some tutoring to catch on and in short order she caught on and finished her work on her own. I got an apology and thank you email from her mom for being patient, her daughter passed her math test and my boss decided we took too many non computer calls so he changed our name. [link] [comments]  |
| Irresponsible co-workers and unanticipated hell Posted: 28 Sep 2018 06:54 AM PDT Some years ago I was consulting as a network admin/project guru for a college. I had started there many years ago as a level 1 tech before going on to Sr Sys, then left for the corporate world. Now I'm back doing various projects and triage coverage for sysadmins. All the admins/techs were in the same area with office or cubes in a building on the edge of the campus. They current top sysadmin was in an office right next to mine, and I saw him rush out the door just before noon. Thinking nothing of it, I"m still logged in working on a 365 admin process, when one of our professors walks in and asks me for help. Technically, I'm not supposed to do any level 1 because it's outside my contract, but we all know that "other duties as assigned" has a way of intruding on reality. Me> Hi $Prof, what's up today $prof> Oh, hello JK, I couldn''t find anyone else in the building, can you help our presenter with some computer things? He's due to hold his presentation in 10 minutes in the #conference1 room, down the hall. Me> Ok, just let me finish up here and I'll be over. I check the COnfroom1 schedule, and see that my co-worker WHO JUST LEFT IN A BIG HURRY, was supposed to help this person due to previous arrangement, and that he apparently bailed. So I skip over to the ConfRoom1 and realize that the presenter has an old PC with no HDMI out. He's not in the room yet, so I go looking for long VGA cable & adapter for the projector, and when I return I am introduced to the presenter. He's an old gentlemen who can hardly walk, can't speak above a whisper, and he's TOTALLY BLIND Our confroom is NOT equipped for this at all, and I am having trouble getting video out,, but finally manage it. His PC is ancient (XP) has special software on it that requires pressing the TAB key multiple times to hilite a screen area, and the computer then reads him out loud what that item is, so he can press the enter key to run that function.. Just getting him through auth on guest wifi is a real PITA with that software for non sighted people. It's obvious we now need a pair of speakers as Bluetooth isn't present, and no HDMI, so my next job is hunting a pair of PC speakers, which requires a trip across campus. Finally we think he's ready to go,, but then he asks how we will be RECORDING HIS SESSION so he can distribute that for his blog. Me> sorry $Mr Blind person, we don't have that capability with our current setup. ( Without HDMI, the white board could record video, but no audio) Bottom line, he's not happy that we are so far behind the times with tech support, and complaints are made to Dean of the College. TL:DR> Don't ever assume anything, co-workers will bail on you with no consideration at all [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Sep 2018 07:53 PM PDT Part III Day 3: "Professional Waiter" should be on our resumes I'll be honest with you, writing this even only a day later I don't remember some of what went down. We've had so many phone calls these past 24 hours that my brain is utterly fried. I'm sitting at other airport right now with TurBoss waiting for the FAA guys to show up. It's 12:56, and they were due here at 13:00, but of course they called to inform us they're running late. At least they called. So. Yesterday. To be perfectly straight, yesterday wasn't particularly interesting. It consisted mostly of driving, sitting in various parking lots for hours on end, and waiting for people to call us back. We check out of the hotel in the morning, as this was before the FSDO informed us that they wanted to come out to look at the plane and our flight out of hell was scheduled for 17:00 that day. (Sorry for screwing up the timeline). We're going back and forth with the FAA and buyers, which is very frustrating as the FAA rep never picks up the phone, but rather emails us back a minimum of an hour after we call. There's waiting. A lot of waiting, and a lot of Hulu. One of the buyers has already left to fly back home, and the remaining one has a flight scheduled as we don't really need him anymore. We pick up buyer to take him to the international airport since other buyer already returned their rental car, and pass 15 miles of stopped traffic on the other side of the interstate. The way we have to return. After we drop him off, we park in a nearby restaurant's parking lot for ~an hour, and await another FAA phonecall. The latest item of bullshit is that the buyer signed the 8130-6 with his name, but listed his LLC as the aircraft owner, so NOW the FAA wants proof that he's actually a partner in the LLC. Well he's on a plane now, so we can't get anything from him. We call his office, explain the situation to the girl working, and how we need some sort of official document listing him as a partner, but she informs us that she can't give that out. Several more phonecalls later, we get connected to somebody else associated with the business, and thankfully, buyer has been filling him in on the plane situation as the story developed. We get a document emailed to us, and email it to the FSDO a few minutes before they close. Resigned to the reality that they won't see or respond to the email until the following day, we place several more phonecalls, cancel our return flights, reserve two new rooms at the hotel we just checked out of, extend the car rental, and drive back to the hotel after ~2 hours of sitting in the car in a gas station parking lot, stopping to grab some carryout, and go to a drive-through beer warehouse. We've drunk a lot on this trip, but I'll be goddamned if anyone tries to tell me we don't deserve it. Food. Beer. It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Typing part II of this tale. Replying to Reddit comments. Bed. Day 4: Ugh Thank, GOD this last part is rather uneventful. We wake up, hang around the hotel until 12 when we have to check out, then drive to other airport to finally wait for the FAA reps to show up at 1. Why WOULDN'T we get a phonecall letting us know that they'll be a half hour late? Really, why WOULDN'T everything that could go wrong continue to go wrong? The half hour turns into an hour, and they finally arrive. Five I left out a lot of details, as the story didn't need explanations of every last phonecall and second we spent waiting around, but seriously guys. We had 3 hours of work, and the rest of our 3 days has been spent on the phone, composing emails, or waiting for somebody to return a phonecall/email. We must have spent more time in the car than out of it. This has been the worst trip ever, fueled by fast food and 3 large Dunkin Donuts coffees a day. (Dunkin- you da real MVP. Thanks for keeping us alive and awake) I wish I had more to write...but I'm really glad I don't. I wish I made an effort on part III to sound interesting and engaging, but I'm too burnt out. I'm just fulfilling my obligation to all the Redditors I couldn't leave hanging! Seeing as it seems you guys liked this story, I'll try posting some smaller, but still mildly interesting stories of my day-to-day back at home base. Thanks for reading about my "adventure!" Thank god you didn't experience it. Till next time! -Crympt [link] [comments]  |
| I forgot Rule #1 of tech support and paid the price with my time. Posted: 28 Sep 2018 09:25 AM PDT Hey guys, I work for a small MSP, and recently I forgot about Rule #1 of tech support, users lie. For those not familiar here are the Rules of Tech support https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/7iqhnq/rules_of_tech_support_version_3/ I should know better, I take this rule to heart most of the time, but this user is one of the more trusted, but they are still by definition a user. We had a project to deploy a small number of desktops to a business. The desktops had arrived and had windows and basic programs set up. I email the user in question, and ask what other software the users will need. "They need $Programs which are web based shortcuts" I of course am hesitant as Rule #1 starts to gnaw at my brain as I confirm "When you say "Web Based Shortcut" you mean there is no installed software, it is just a web page with an icon on the desktop that opens in their web browser correct?" They say yes, which unfortunately I took be truth, In this case however Rule 1A was relevant, "It may not be malicious or willful, but Rule 1 is always in effect." At the time I was just going to push out the web shortcut via group policy and call it good, which takes much less time than installing software. I show up to the site with my team ready to get the desktops rolled out that day, everything is going smoothly and I ask for the URL's for the web shortcuts. After we get a few desktops deployed I get the link to the software, which is not a web shortcut at all but a exe that needs to be locally installed. To make matters worse the software needs a bit of configuration as well as opposed to just clicking next a bunch of times. Luckily we ended up getting it installed but we only after running around to PCs we had already said were "done" and running back and forth clicking next on each window, plugging in settings etc. We ended up "finishing" the project (see edit) but after staying much later than planned and having to deal with rush hour traffic on the way home. edit: One of my techs called me out, we got it "complete" where our tech for the site (poor soul) had to finish up a few lingering items that we meant to get done. Sorry $Tech! Let this be a cautionary tale, never forget Rule #1 of tech support. As others here have said "Trust, but verify" [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Sep 2018 09:27 AM PDT Getting right to the deets: $U - End User (US) $S - Support Engineer (India) I'm based in the US, though our main office is in the UK. We had 2 IT groups, one in the US, and one in the UK. Now, we have a 3rd IT group based in India. This decision stemmed from the guys in the UK, and we had no decision making power here. Anyways, for the past 6+ years I've been with the company, I've always setup all North America user accounts, and the UK group would create accounts for the rest of the world. Now, all new user requests go to India. $U has a new employee starting, so a ticket is submitted with all the new user details. This is the very first time we got a new US user since the new India team went live, so I passed the ticket over to them for user setup. A couple days later I see the user account is still not setup, so I take a look at the ticket conversation history....
At this point, it's clear the language barrier really screwed things up here. No, we do not need the users fathers name, that's just weird. I ended up assigning the ticket back to myself and just taking care of everything. This new process going forward has already failed on our very first attempt. It actually would have been nice not setting up those accounts, but I rather do it myself the right way rather than let communication errors throw things way out of wack. [link] [comments]  |
| Lesson Learned: Check Everything Posted: 28 Sep 2018 05:19 PM PDT This is a story from about a year and a half ago. I had been telling it to a bunch of my IT friends and realized that you guys would probably appreciate a good laugh at my expense here too. I'm going to start off by saying that the network structure at my company isn't the best. I've improved on some of it, especially because of this story, but it could still use work that probably isn't in the budget. About a week before everything went downhill, my company had gotten a new copier in. It was hooked up and after a few days of testing, we decided that it would work, and that we would move it to its final resting place. For whatever reason, that last part had been done without me. But at least one of the people involved in it was tech-savvy enough that I trusted him to unplug wires and plug them in at a new location, so I shrugged and let them do it. The next day I was in our secondary location when I got a call. The network seemed to have a bunch of issues. The network was running super slow, and they had already gone through the basics to troubleshoot everything (power cycling the servers and network devices). Everything was slow enough that it was enough of an emergency to drag me back to the main location so I could take a look at it. Of course, this all happened on a Friday before I was going to be out for the weekend, so I got in, repeated the basics to make sure it had been done properly, then started to monitor the situation.While monitoring, I poked around, and determined that the only changes that had been made to the network recently was the copier move. I immediately decided that the copier couldn't have been the issue. After all, it worked in its old location, there's no reason it would suddenly start throwing a fit in the new location. And well... I was right. Sorta. By the time we determined that there was still an issue, it was time to leave, I would get in early on Monday and resume troubleshooting. Monday rolls around, and I'm there at 7AM.Throughout the day I replace most of our major networking equipment, i.e. the main router and switches, part of which involves me driving about an hour to pick up new ones. A new problem also pops up, of course. One of our more important computers is acting up. It's just sitting on the login screen, unable to log in. This goes on the backburner, because the network is more important. Eventually, 7PM rolls around, and I'm stumped. I can't see where the issue possibly is. I'm tired. I go home. The next day, In a fit of frustration, I do what one of my coworkers (who had previously done tech work) has suggested. I change out the 10/100 switch the new copier is on with a proper gigabit switch. (And yes, we have a gigabit network, but my old boss loved saving money by not upgrading old equipment, and I had picked up on that habit when I took over.) At this point I'm desperate for any change that isn't rewiring the whole building. And of course, having done that... everything is fixed. I'm baffled, but whatever, everything works, I'm happy again. But of course, there's still that problem with the one computer not logging in. I go over, hook it up in my office... and it boots up fine. I shrug and hook it up where it originally was again... right next to the new copier, hooking it up on the new switch. The next day... the computer has stopped logging in again. Exact same behavior as before. And this is when I do the thing I should have done when the whole mess started. I look at the wires that are connected to the switch. I trace them... and I discover that in the course of moving the copier, someone had discovered that there was a loose ethernet cable on the floor, figured it was supposed to be plugged into something, and plugged it in. Only... it was a cable that had been left over from a previous device that had been moved away at some point, and the other end was already plugged into that same switch. I had a loop. I had a loop, and the old switch was so old that it didn't support the more modern network protocols to not cripple the rest of the network in the case of a loop. Changing to a newer switch had isolated the problem to the devices local to it. So yeah, that old switch? Right into the trash. In fact, after all those days of stressing out, I went on a purge, replacing and throwing out any and all of the switches of that make we still had. But yeah, I learned that day that I shouldn't blindly trust other people to know exactly what they are doing. Also, to not keep extra ethernet cables laying around, where someone can unknowingly create a loop. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Sep 2018 06:56 AM PDT My company has a bunch of conference rooms. If a user wants to set up a meeting with a client, a webinar etc they can request a laptop put into one of the conference rooms. Yesterday I get a ticket to set up a laptop in conference room 2 at 9AM. So it's all set up and ready to go when I get an email from the user. User: How do we get this laptop running? - Regards Me: It is running. It's set up in conference room 2 ready to go. User: It is logged out Me: .... the password is written on a post-it on top of the keyboard User: I got it logged in but I need to get into my presentation Me: I don't have your presentation? User: come by please So I go by and he had a go-to-meeting set up which we normally set up for them in advance which he didn't put in the ticket and expected us to just set up. Users smh [link] [comments]  |
| The old, the new, and the forgotten. Posted: 28 Sep 2018 06:41 PM PDT Man, this whole encounter has definitely had me confused for this whole entire day. It happened this morning, and even after going over it a couple of times I still don't know what the heck this guy was wanting. A little back story... I work first level tech support in a call center for a very large company, and help sales people to associates. I assist with all hardware and non-proprietary software issues, as well as password resets and most access issues. So I get this call from a department manager. Since I can't remember what most of what I say right after I said it, some of the following will be paraphrased, but most of it is still correct. I will, of course, be $me, and the manager will be $manager. $Me: Thank you for calling tech support, my name is ovenproofcorgi, may I have your name and employee number? $Manager gives me his information. Generic pleasantries are exchanged. $Me: Thank you, $Manager, how can we help you today? $Manager: I'm having trouble with my computer password. I changed it last Monday, and then again on Friday, and my computer will only take my old password. And then when I went to change all my other passwords to make them all the same, those wouldn't work either. Note: Our company has several different passwords. There's the computer password for the majority of things, but then there are other passwords for accessing paychecks, as well as ones for logging into specific servers. I am able to reset computer/windows account passwords, but all the others he is referring to are done via a password reset site that the user themselves has to log into. Also, for security, we always advise our employees to have different passwords for all of their accounts. They of course don't listen. $Me: I'm sorry that's happened, and I'll be more than happy to assist you with that. Let me check some items here on my side to see what we can do for you. I check his windows account, and I see it was last changed on Monday of this week, five days ago. His account isn't locked, nor has the password been reset at all. The tool we have is basic, but does give us that amount of information. $Me: Okay, well, I can see here that your windows account is in good standing, and hasn't been reset since Monday. But you said you had to log into your workstation using your old password, correct? $Manager: Yes, and then when I tried to change my other passwords they wouldn't work either. $Me: Okay... Are you working in the office today, or are you working from home? $Manager: I'm in the office. I explain to him that sometimes what can happen, is if the password was changed, sometimes our systems don't recognize that it had been changed. I have seen this once in my over five years in my current position, but it has happened, so I don't second guess it at the moment. I ask the manager to restart his workstation, which he does (begrudgingly). Once he is back at the log in screen, I have him log back in with what he is telling me is his new/current password. He tells me it doesn't work. I ask him to then try logging in with his old password. He tells me it lets him log in. At this point I ask him if I can remote access his system. He obliges, I give my standard legal statements of don't have personal information up and I dig in. $Me: Okay, after looking over some things, I can't find a reason why your system isn't accepting your newest password. At this point, I think we will have to go ahead and reset it since it didn't take the last time. Again, I have seen this before. $Manager: No, I don't want to reset my password again. Then I'll have too many passwords to remember and I don't want that. Internally I'm thinking... dude... it's two passwords! I have multiple accounts that I have to keep up with and change on a semi regular basis, including (but not limited to) three admin accounts, a couple of dispatch sites for order equipment, MY computer password, the password I use to check my paycheck, and several PINs. If I can remember my passwords, all varying lengths and complexities (up to 16 characters, letters, numbers, symbols, upper case, lower case, no sequences), you can remember your two passwords. Anywho... It was at about this point that something finally clicked... When he was talking about when he reset his password he kept saying "last Monday" and "Friday". That seemed especially odd since I could clearly see that he last reset his windows password on this Monday, just five days ago. $Me: Manager, I have a quick question, when you say you reset your password last Monday, are you referring to Monday of this week? $Manager: Yes. Imagine my face as I just stare straight ahead with a "Are you kidding me" face. $Me: Manager, that isn't your old password, that's your current password. It hasn't been changed or reset since Monday. $Manager: Okay, well, I'm trying to change all my other passwords to make them the same and those new ones aren't working. I opened the password reset site and I have him log into it using his windows password... his "old" one, as he so frustratingly called it. I go straight to the password that he's trying to reset and I watch him as he changes it. He is doing everything correctly. But the password change for the paycheck site isn't working. It is telling him he can't use it because he's used it before. $Me: Okay, it didn't take that password because you've used it before. You'll need to come up with something different. $Manager: I don't want it to be different. I want it to be my new password. It's only taking my old password Ding! He said NEW and OLD password... $Me: I have a question, because I just want to clarify something. I'm going to repeat back the information you've given to me. You are able to log into both your computer and the paycheck site using the password that you have been referring to as your "old" (I actually used air quotes in real life... don't judge me!) password, correct? $Manager: Yes $Me, contemplating throwing my keyboard across the room: There is no need for you to change your passwords, you are not logging in with or accessing anything with an old password. You are using your current password. They have no been changed, nor reset, since the last time you changed them, which was on Monday of this week. $Manager: But I still can't get into everything. $Me: Then what were you trying to log into that wasn't working? $Manager: I don't know, I forgot $Me: . . . $Manager: This is taking too long. You've been absolutely no help *click* I stared at my computer screens for a good couple of minutes as I contemplated how I was going to notate the ticket in our ticketing system. I tried my best, hoping that when/if he called back, that hopefully the next person he spoke with would read it and be able to just, I don't know... figure out what in the hell he needed help with. I couldn't figure out if I was confused, annoyed, or frustrated. I wanted to help the guy, but it didn't seem like he could help himself. A couple hours after this, when I had a moment, I talked to my supervisor about it since I wanted to see if maybe I missed something during the conversation. She was just as confused as I was. [link] [comments]  |
| Tales of the Temps Pt 2: The notepad Posted: 28 Sep 2018 06:35 PM PDT Greetings and welcome to another temp tale! This is only a "part 2" in spirit because I didn't call the original part 1. Hey hindsight is 20/20 right? At any rate if you wanna read the first one, it can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/9g88c2/wait_i_need_to_save_my_icons/?st=jmmog1a6&sh=03910652 Spot the easter egg obscure pop-culture reference for internet points! Anyways with an alarming decrease in the amount of alcohol currently at my disposal, let's trudge bravely onward! First let's set the characters:
Recently I was "promoted" to asset management at $MSP which means I no longer have to deal with end users (Yay) but I'm responsible for all hardware repairs and computer issues with our agents. Normally, this shouldn't be a problem. You might say to yourself "Well golly gee these people are tech support agents, they should be able to handle things themselves", and that is where my dear reader, you would be wrong. My desk provides technical assistance for $GovOrg and during the end of summer/beginning of fall we have a very high call volume and as such, we hire about 60 temps to help handle the case-load. Now $Kevin is a very special man. He's been around the block a few times and the path around the block has formed into a rut, but Kevin is a proud man who perseveres through the hurdles life throws at him. Hurdles like typing, sending email, or the immense challenge of filling out tickets. The third bit is what this story is all about. Now $MSP uses a ticketing system that is pretty easy to use with some procedures on how different tickets are supposed to be written up. Easy enough right? When a user calls in, the process is pretty straight-forward you document the issue with troubleshooting notes, and a resolution or escalation to another resolving group. The point of the ticketing system is to capture any and all notes about the incident prior to routing/resolving. Welllll $Kevin had a notepad. No, I don't mean the notepad application I mean the dude had a physical pen and paper. Kevin wrote everything on this notepad. He'd write out his bathroom breaks, his credentials for various systems (he left this notepad on his desk in the open at all times despite $AC getting after him about it multiple times), but the big kicker was he would write his entire tickets on this notepad and then type them into our ticketing system at a rate of 4 keystrokes per hour. It was annoying for the $Leads and $SupportStaff, but it finally came to a head one day. $Kevin lost his notepad. Now the losing his notepad would have been bad enough with the sensitive information on it, but it also had all his tickets. Now, dear reader you might assume at this point that $Kevin would do the responsible thing and tell someone, but this wouldn't be much of a story if that happened. So what's a $Kevin sans notepad to do? Well we keep an eye on the call to ticket ratio, and if there's a significant discrepancy then $AC or AC'sBoss will get really interested in the agent with the discrepancy. Knowing this, $Kevin does what any sensible $Kevin would do in his shoes. He So he picked usernames and made up tickets to send out. Needless to say, it wasn't long before we had a ton of confused users calling about an email confirmation on tickets they didn't make and pissed off users who didn't get a ticket for their issue. $Kevin was immediately pulled into a meeting and not 15 minutes later I got an email to pull his workstations and revoke his AD credentials. it was the best email I've ever received. If it didn't contain sensitive info, I'd have it framed. TL;DR Temp agent at $MSP writes everything down with pen and paper instead of using our ticketing system and it backfires Stay tuned for part 3: "compute dont work". Hope you enjoyed, wear your seatbelt and don't eat rocks! EDIT: We found his notepad shortly after. It was in a bathroom stall on the toilet paper dispenser. [link] [comments]  |
| The Magically Powered Projector Posted: 28 Sep 2018 11:38 PM PDT So... Unlike my previous stories, this is one that i hope gets a bit of a chuckle. Mainly because of just how stupid it is! As I was starting in my previous role, construction was wrapping up on a new building that was going to be specifically for students in higher education. it was a glorious monstrosity. Built up from ideas that a dozen people on a committee thought were amazing design choices that would make the school look more modern. High (very high) ceilings, glass everywhere. a wonderful opaque bit at the front that would house a pulsing light that constantly changed colour. Blah blah blah. Basically, what I'm saying is that, as is always the way, what it looked like was given more attention than boring stuff like infrastructure, cabling, etc etc. About three weeks after the building was opened to teach in, we get a call that the data projector on the ceiling has suddenly stopped working. the entire inside of the building had been put together by contractors. Everything installed without any consultation with the support team and being that the building opened late, we barely had a chance to look at stuff before it was being used to teach! Off I go to take a look. it's a new projector, it must be a loose cable or something equally dumb. right? NOPE! Sure enough, the projector isn't working. no power, won't switch on, nothing. I grab my boss (mainly because i need a sanity check and a second man for a ladder to get into those ceilings) and we start unpicking cables behind the projector. Head firmly in the false ceiling, I trace the power cable back to a mains socket in the ceiling and unplug/replug it. Nothing. I swap out the power cable. Zip. I grab the site team and we go and check the trip switches. Naff all. I swap out the projector. Nada 2 hours into this issue we are on the phone to the installers asking them to come take a look. "Tomorrow" they say. We make our apologies to the teacher and wait. The next day, the installers arrive and we walk into a classroom with a fully working projector!!! No one knows how, it just sprang to life in the middle of the last lesson the day before! Slightly embarrassed, we send the fitters away and get on with our day. A day later the same thing happens again! No power, no nothing. Now I'm in the ceiling on the phone to the installers and he asks me... "Have you checked the switch for the mains" Wait! What? What switch? There is no switch! I've spent hours LOOKING for a switch. "Yes mate, it's on the dado railing around the room. every class has one" Oh for fuck's sake! Really? I stick my head out the ceiling and look down, sure enough, there's a power switch in the cable trunking. I ask a student, sheepishly, to flip the switch for me. Due to the extreme height, he can't hear me and I have to send down a telegram with the hiking guide that got me up here, the projector wakes up and springs to life - showing the teacher's personal email address to the class in the process! It turns out that the projector was accidentally (or not, this was early in my education career, i learned different very quick) being switched off and on my students leaning back in their chars against the wall and knocking the switch! Embarrassed, i quickly slinked off for a coffee and a smoke and tried to forget it ever happened. It did lead to years of laughs though when it happened over and over again and I looked magic by just waltzing in and flicking the switch on. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Sep 2018 08:43 PM PDT So I've posted a some short stories of various clients, but this is a few instances of just 1 intern. With this client, they had students from universities work in the summer after a couple years. Too often they got shiny, new laptops. We also made a New Hire sheet with all the info for them to start here first, including how to change your password. Every so often, a new hire or in this case, the Intern, came to me with how to change it. So I pull my usual solution of getting a copy of the New Hire sheet and said
Next issue, and the main reason for the post, was at the end of the day, were I typically was the busiest trying to wrap things up (and users came to me with last minute issues knowing I was about to leave). Intern came to me needing a network cable for the next room, a minor request, however I was dealing with a moderate networking issue of some kind and asked him to wait a couple minutes. Rather than wait, he looked around my little office of a server room, spied a network cable that appeared to be available, and tried to take it. However, that was for THE server and my presence there was the only thing that stopped him from disconnecting the main server. Only person I recall needing to order out of the server room. Yes, he did still get his cable. Last IT related issue was that despite being an intern with a brand new laptop, he didn't take good care of it and in the 2 weeks he was there, it was stolen. His replacement laptop was an older model, recently repaired. Finally, he wasn't just brash with IT, and I could clearly tell that while some other interns, including his best friend there, would comeback for other internships or job offer, "sadly" BadIntern did not. TL;DR Intern can't read New Hire sheet, nearly unplugs server due to impatience, loses new laptop. Does not come back. [link] [comments]  |
| Network crash the night before a big exam - Stress mode activate. Posted: 28 Sep 2018 07:18 PM PDT Hey guys, first official TFTS post! One evening after imaging ~30 PC's to be used for tomorrow's exam, I go to connect them up to our exam server. Surprise surprise, as soon as I patch into the core switch the network shuts down. Not the whole thing thankfully, but still it is the part that is vital to the exam.... That's right, I had a loop. Someone (probably me, if I'm honest) had plugged a small 8 port switch into the wall, and then another cable coming out and back into the same darn switch. TL;DR Overthinking a simple problem, wasted 2 hours by making a rookie mistake. [link] [comments]  |
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