“Why would I put a window in my computer?” Tech Support |
- “Why would I put a window in my computer?”
- Complete this by 12-31-2018
- Shoutout to all tech supporters
- Its not always the customer's fault
| “Why would I put a window in my computer?” Posted: 31 Dec 2018 09:26 AM PST This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I volunteer at a refugee center, mostly as tech support. A vast majority of the refugees in our area are from former Yugoslavia, but there are lots of others mixed in, including a significant minority from Africa. Yesterday, a young man came up to me and asked me to help him with his school work. He spoke fluent English, and he was being placed in a Public school that semester, skipping the usual ESL classes (because he spoke better English than I did). He was trying to open a document on his laptop, running Linux. The file he was trying to open used a Windows-only program (because public school). I asked if he had a Windows machine. "Why would I put a window in my computer?" I have never seen someone not know what Windows was. Apparently, the cheap laptops available where he came from all ran Linux, Android, or ChromeOS (which are both Linux-based, thanks, I know). He was really good with Linux, and we had a talk about our favorite distros. We then ran his 'Windows only' program in WINE. TL;DR: kid didn't know what Windows was. Learned about WINE instead. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 31 Dec 2018 11:36 AM PST So I work in a call center that provides help desk tech support for a variety of clients, one of which is a leviathan corporation that provides all sorts of things to stores where you get stuff. I'm new at this "anonymizing" thing, bear with me. The web services for this company are split up into five or six different divisions, and they're all interconnected and supposed to work together to make things easier for their customers. So, of course, support is covered by different teams, at different call centers, and none of them get the same information, but some of them have a little bit of access to one of the other sites, but not another one of them, and some of them actively refuse to communicate with the others OR with their customers, and it's really an adventure to provide support for these people. I've seen worse, but I've seen better. Anyway, one of the compartmentalized divisions of the company decided to send some faxes and emails out to several thousands of their customers to tell them that they need to fill out a form that's supposedly found on one of their more frequently used websites that used to be the central hub for getting to all their other webs services and third-party partners. However, the company decided that they were going to make the site that I do support for the new central hub, so they're actively filtering all traffic through us. So, These thousands of customers start calling in to our lines because they were sent this fax telling them to go to this one place and the links there are asking them to log into a whole other account to get to where they think they're supposed to go, but even if they CAN log in, they still can't find what they need. As a group. my team was not told this was coming, and didn't find out about the faxes, the links, or the phrases we were being asked about until we started getting calls from the customers. I did some searches of our site, but didn't find anything that looked like an apparent link, except one that inexplicably tried to send them back to the website they came from. At first, we were sending everyone back to the group that sent out the faxes. I would warm-transfer in hopes that they would give us a clue that would help, but they would just say "The link is there on [other website], we can show them where to find it!" and we were all done. But, after a few days, all the calls were going straight to voicemail. Callers were angry. By the time this past Friday rolled around, we were getting many more calls from users being unable to find this thing they were supposed to have done by the end of the day today. We kept transferring, and were still unable to find anything because we don't have any readily apparent access to the site everyone is coming from. After one too many upset people today, I get a short chance to look around and finally find a back door to get into the other website that we don't have access to and finally see what it looks like there. I find the link to the "form" everyone is looking for and click it. I was prompted to log into the site I support for the specific page. I made it in and could see that the link was to the page I'd found in my search a week ago. Hidden in a little corner is a link to a pdf file labeled "[thing they have to do] Directions". I downloaded that and down near the bottom of the first page it actually has a link leading them to the completely separate website that they have to go to to actually get this task completed. So, to review - the fax/email tells them to go to [other site] to a link that sends them specifically to [a page on the site I support] that starts to load and then asks them to sign in (which they may or may not be able to do), and then they have to click on the pdf link to the [thing they have to do] Directions.pdf file that then sends them to a link to the [third party that actually has the thing that they have to do] website. Totally not complicated. No, not overcomplicated at all. Much MUCH easier than just PUTTING A LINK TO THE PDF IN THE ORIGINAL LINK ON THE FIRST WEBSITE. Or at least making a page with all the directions on it instead of putting it in a goddamn pdf. This shit is why I go home every day feeling stabby. [link] [comments]  |
| Shoutout to all tech supporters Posted: 31 Dec 2018 07:22 AM PST This is a story which happened exactly one year ago. Background: Being the tech-savvy guy in my class people would usually contact me when their computer acted up. Anyhow it is new years eve and I'm in the midst of eating dinner, when I get a text on my phone from a pal. This friend of mine is a really nice guy, but he's also a workaholic. *Friend: Hi Infernova! I was writing this paper when suddenly my keyboard started to act up. *Me: In what way? Are buttons still registering or are the wrong letters being input? *Friend: The letters. Some of the keys input the wrong symbol, (I can't remember the exact letters, but it was something åäö and some shift+letters) *Me: Sounds like your computer thinks you're using probably an english keyboard, check in your settings which keyboard you're using. *Friend(after some minutes): Shit I found it! Thanks mate! *Me: Btw, how come you're working on new years eve? *Friend: Bro I just forgot that it's new years eve 😂 Apparently he got so into his work that he forgot what day it was. Anywell, happy new year to all you awesome dudes out there [link] [comments]  |
| Its not always the customer's fault Posted: 31 Dec 2018 09:51 AM PST Hey guys, first time posting here. My previous tech job was working in a call center for a local ISP providing residential tech support for cable and internet. I have tons of silly customer stories, but this was a one of the more "fun" calls. Take the next call, this sub is already pretty upset because he's had to repeat his story to several operators before getting me on the line. Sub - I came home and my internet and cable are out. Is there an outage? Me - I am not aware of any service outages in your town, lets take a look. I run a healthcheck on his modem and hit his cable box with a refresh. Sure enough, the refresh fails and I cant pull up stats on his modem. We go through the regular troubleshooting, but after a few minutes he stops me. Sub - I really need this up as soon as possible, I have a job bid to submit by midnight and if I don't I will lose out on a $75000 job. Me - Unfortunately the earliest we can get a tech out to investigate would be tomorrow. Sub - That's not going to work, here let me run outside and check the line, maybe I can splice it back if the neighbors dog chewed it up or something. I give him my name and extension and tell him to call me back so we can continue troubleshooting, and move on to the next call. About an hour later, one of our operators messages me and lets me know that Sub is calling back for me. Sub - getSmoke, I am f***ing pissed. Now, I am not mad a you, but get this... and he proceeds to tell me that when he went out to check the coax line going to the pedestal in between his yard and his other neighbors, one his neighbors comes out to see whats going on. Sub tells him that his cable isn't working and he is checking it out. The neighbor tells him that one of our field techs came out earlier that day to work on his line, and when he saw the Sub's cable, he asked the neighbor who belonged to. Of course the neighbor did not know, so the field tech decides to CUT THE LINE. Not just from the Ped, but also going all the way into the ice (about 4 feet of cable). Sub - Now I'm not mad at you, but this is f***ing bullshit and someone needs to come out right now to get this fixed. Its 8pm, and all the techs have gone home for the night in this town (there are only 3, its a small town). I tell him that this is completely unacceptable and that I will do everything I can from my end. I escalate the issue to the manager on duty, call dispatch and email the tech and his direct supervisor. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done this late in the evening, and the dispatch manager emails me and lets me know that we will come out first thing in the morning. Sub - Well thats f***ing great, you guys cost me a 75000 job. Now, I am not the type that apologizes profusely, and after a certain point apologizing more than a few times would just piss him off even more. Still, this situation is completely on us, and the field tech fucked up. So I move to plan B. I walk him through how to tether his phone to his laptop and we get him back online. He calms down a little bit, and asks me to patch him through to a manager. On my end, I follow up with a remedy ticket for the tech roll, email the tech's manager for the obviously required coaching that he needs, and submit a credit form to give this man 2 months of service. TLDR: field tech cuts customer's coax line because of reasons(?) and interrupts all services to his home, almost costing the customer a job. [link] [comments]  |
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