Oh My laptop is in my car boot! Tech Support |
- Oh My laptop is in my car boot!
- Wi-Fi and cats: natural enemies.
- Just forget I ever said anything
- Can't you connect remotely an enable it?
- If you'd listened to me in the first place...
- Missing laptop, Hmmm......
| Oh My laptop is in my car boot! Posted: 30 May 2019 08:10 AM PDT I encountered this a week or so ago with the head of HR / Operations in my office. I work for a SOFTWARE COMPANY!! You'd think ppl would be kinda technical. for context: Users have a primary laptop. Some critical staff also have a secondary crappy spec laptop at home for business continuity reasons. the only purpose of this critical laptop is to connect to vpn and remote desktop to their primary laptop in the office, in case of emergency. These are skype ims: User: Morning, can you help me, I can't remote desktop to my laptop in work, im on the secondary laptop me: sure no prbs ( I go through the usual steps...connected to vpn, proxy settings, they have the correct name to remote desktop into. I spend 30-40 mins doing these checks. Baffled I walk up to their office to see if the primary laptop is connected to the network. It's not on their desk) Me: Ok I'm back, sorry where is your laptop that you are trying to remote desktop to User: Oh, it's in the boot of my car, I put it there so I wouldnt forget to bring it into the office after i brought it home last night. (Me...waiting ....waiting for the penny to drop..........it doesnt) Me: You can't connect to it if it's int he boot of your car. It needs to be on the network in the office. User: Oh I see, I guess that makes sense. ( Me in my head "are they fucking for real" GOD GIVE ME STRENGTH. EDIT: I feel like I need to edit this and say, yes I know two laptops are stupid. No I dont make the rules, higher up do, and we both know sometimes our recommendations aren't listened to. So please stop telling me to tell them to just bring the laptops home. Gracias amigos! [link] [comments]  |
| Wi-Fi and cats: natural enemies. Posted: 30 May 2019 11:57 AM PDT I wrote this as a comment somewhere else, but thought it was a good idea to do the extended version here. Years ago, when I was living in Mexico City, found myself short on money and with no good jobs in the near future, so I did what most young people do for a quick buck: I went to work in a call center. Since I was fluent enough in english, got enrolled into Internet Services Support for AT&T. We had to manage calls in english and spanish, but per contract we were Tier 1 support only, which means we couldn't help beyond what was in our scope, otherwise we had to escalate to Tier 2. I grew up a little frustrated from time because I knew the solution to most issues but couldn't do shit about them (years later I understood it has to do with liability). So there I was one afternoon, things were going smoothly and I get a call from a very kind middle-aged lady that had problems with her Wi-Fi, apparently she wasn't getting any signal from it. I followed the script, checked the basics, did the remote diagnostics and everything, all while chit chatting with her. I found out the modem was defective and resetting by itself every few minutes, so I scheduled a visit from the technician to replace it. I let her know the diagnostic and that a technician was going to her place later. U$ER: Oh my, do you think I'll be without internet for a long time? Me: Don't worry, I'll try to set it up as soon as possible so you don't have to worry about it. U$ER: Thank you. Now that I recall, the cat was around the modem yesterday. Me: (Thinking to myself, hope the cat didn't trip on the modem or something) I see, maam. Do you think he tripped over the cables? U$ER: No, no, it wasn't that. It's just, you know, cats can see things we cannot, right? Me: I suppose. U$ER: I'm thinking he might have seen the Wi-Fi signal and stole it. Cats tend to be that playful, maybe he misplaced it. Me: ...yeah... (me trying to understand what the hell I just heard and not to laugh) You know, cats! U$ER: Can't live without them! She was nice enough I didn't want to contradict her or anything, but I had to take a little break after the call to laugh out loud. Of course, had to make sure there was no cats around. You never know what they might steal. [link] [comments]  |
| Just forget I ever said anything Posted: 31 May 2019 03:11 AM PDT Currently working as a hardware tech fixing printers. Have a small team on the phone that takes incoming calls where they take all the information regarding the issue, 90% of the time it is user error and can be fixed on the phone. If it is determined that a hardware repair is needed than a canned email is sent giving out our address while mentioning how much the assessment will cost. If additional parts are required then "we will send you the full quote before the repair and the repair will be performed after quote is approved". Received a printer a couple of days ago. Assessed the unit, needed some rollers replaced but didn't have them in stock. Ordered stock which was due to arrive in 2 days. Customer calls the next day pleading me to get the repairs done asap. Told him I would repair and ship it out by the end of the week. After receiving the parts I replaced the faulty rollers with new ones. Called customer telling him his printer has been fixed and will be shipped out. Also informed him that the cost of the rollers was going to be $200. Tells me he is happy it is fixed. I tell him I will the courier now so it leaves our office today. Should be delivered tomorrow. Call ends. Manager calls 30 minutes later. Have a very good relationship with him, he works from another city. I work autonomously in my area.
Called customer.
Received email minutes later where he says he is approving the repairs and wants it back asap. I wish I could understand what the point was that he was trying to make. [link] [comments]  |
| Can't you connect remotely an enable it? Posted: 30 May 2019 10:38 AM PDT Years ago, while working a tech support got a situation which still till this day makes me laugh. We had support from managers and their laptops, to production machines connected to on intranet workstations and entry/exit security guys and their systems, and more, and all this in different countries. One such story is about the entry\exist PC, which was using a shared username, usually always getting locked out when shifts changes, i think it was monday morning, few hours before the regular 9to5 people would come to work, so we had time to fix it. Anything big that couldn't be fixed remotely would be taken care by regional on site teams. Got a call from one such gate(they were kinda all linked, so if 1 goes down, all go down), so this story got $ME, a Security Guy($SG), and Karen from On Site support($KOS). *ring* *ring* $ME: Hi, my name is...[interrupted] $SG: Hey dude(i was on weekend shift, so was he, we talked before so he knew i was in that early and that i was going to answer), we have a problem with this $pass [i interrupt him this time] $ME: Hey man, got it got it, also you know we shouldn't know passwords, please, pleeeeeease say $username and not $password when you call, it's recorded. $SG: Sorry tired, couple hours left and this happened. $ME: unlocked it, call it in. $SG: hold on, (he puts phone aside, get's on the walkey and contacts other stations), $pass.. I MEAN $USERNAME IS WORKING, confirm all stations, (loud static noises and couple voices confirm it works, picks up phone and continues conversation with $ME), ok, so it's confirmed, thanks buddy $ME(cause i guess i was a bit too pro-active say): i heard everyone confirming except you $SG: ah right, let me check... [FEW MOMENTS LATER] Oh it's not working for me, weird So we go back and forth with [insert basic troubleshooting here] and at this point i make him describe with own words everything, every pixel on the monitor, lucky for both of us he starts from right corner describing all the icons near the watch, now, not sure if i was tired or the way he described it, but I almost missed it then say: $ME: Wait, boxes? what boxes? $SG: yeah, 2 boxes with a red x $ME: do they look more like monitors rather then boxes? $SG: you might be right, now at closer look, yes, is that bad? $ME: well yes, means you don't have network on it So we go on testing, from "have you tried turning it off and on again" to more advanced network adapters check and figure out network cards are disabled, quickly realize no admin rights on the $pass... i mean $account, so gotta involve On Site team so looks up who's on call and of course it is Karen. I tell $SG, he says a reassuring "oh NO!" and wishes me good luck. So i call On Site on call and it goes like this: $ME: Hi, morning, sorry to disturb, we got an issue with...[interrupted] $KOS: What did you do again? (she just hated me, so blames everything on me, but that's a whole other story) $ME: One of the entry systems got the network card disabled. $KOS: SO? $ME: (wishing to say "all the info is in that sentence, you should know this", continue patiently biting my own lip): well the $username used doesn't have admin rights so cannot enable it. $KOS: SO? $ME: Someone needs to enable it locally. $KOS: give them the local admin and... [i interrupt $KOS] $ME: would do so, but due to security reasons and policy and because they might misuse for other purposes, can't do that. $KOS: [discussed "uhm" followed by] great, now i have to drive an hour to get there. $ME: truly sorry, would help if i could. $KOS: Sure, you can shove your sorry ... (she stops talking) ... Ok, send me the details on my phone. *click* (she hung up) So i start creating the case number, gather and prepare the date to send to $KOS, almost clicked "Send" button when phone rings. *ring* ring* $ME: hi, i'm...[interrupted] $KOS: you moron, you woke me up for this? $ME confused, it was 3 minutes later at best, and wondering how she got there that fast: I'm sorry? $KOS: I knew you were incompetent but this takes the cake(expression might be lost in translation). $ME: Sorry again, if you could tell me what to do, i will do it, i want to help,an sorry for disturbing you so early. $KOS: well... *starts actually yelling* HAVE YOU TRIED CONNECT REMOTELY AND ENABLE IT? YOU ARE AFTER ALL ADMIN... GEEZ... SUCH INCOMPETENCE... $ME: How? *cue awkward silence and cricket noises" $ME(trying to break the silence): Sadly to connect it has to be on the network, and since network card is dis...[interrupted] $KOS: I'm sooooo stupid... *cue more awkward silence, more crickets, and my will to not want to disagree* Thank you for reading, stay strong dear technicians. :) [link] [comments]  |
| If you'd listened to me in the first place... Posted: 30 May 2019 11:19 AM PDT Warning: long read So I work for a place that leases printers. I'm part of the support team, specifically phone support. When the phone rings, I try and fix their shit remotely. Usually it's a scanning issue or something simple. When I can't fix it, we send a field tech on-site. This is a story of the most difficult and argumentative customer I've ever dealt with. He was a self-proclaimed "computer guy", but he actually had no idea what he was doing. He just thinks he's hot shit. So, Tuesday morning at 8 the phone rings. The guy ($Guy) has just got a new server because the old one shit the bed, and he needed help getting scanning working to the new one. So, I remote in and take a look (specifically I remote into his PC, and he has remote access from that to the server) Now, sometimes there's instances where I'm unsuccessful. Usually it's a problem that can't be resolved over the phone; it requires a set of eyes on-site. I'm also the newest and most inexperienced, so sometimes I need help. Not often, but it happens. This instance was a combination of both. The conversation picks up after I've done everything I can do over the phone. (During this time, he also made me give him my work email and direct extension (wouldn't take no for an answer - we like customers to call the main support line and not techs directly), plus he insisted on making detailed screenshots of everything I did on the copier's webUI. Tedious, but whatever.) Note: This conversation is hugely truncated. If not, I'd be typing this up all day)
Note: I don't often do firmware updates. That's usually a job for the field techs. It's possible to do firmware updates using the copier's web interface, but it's our SOP to do such updates in person using an SD card. It's way quicker, and the tech can babysit the machine and make sure nobody tries to use it. If we do it over the webUI, and someone tries to use the printer while the update is in progress, it can cause problems. I've never seen that happen, but I've heard stories from my coworkers
I walk downstairs to the shop, where the field techs hang out. Since I've not often done a firmware update, I wanted their help. Enter $Coworker.
I call him back and get him on speakerphone with both me and $Coworker. My coworker, being the hero, took the lead.
We transfer the firmware files (4 in total) to his PC. To do the update, you need to apply them one at a time by uploading through the webUI. It can take a long time (thankfully in this case, it didn't)
He then proceeds to comb through the readme files for the next twenty minutes, checking the firmware file names matched the ones we were updating on the copier. They didn't match (according to $Coworker it was because we were applying a hotfix and the names don't always match). After another 20 minutes of convincing him it was fine, he relented and let us proceed. At this point, we'd been on the phone for about 2 hours. We apply the first firmware file, and sat and watched as it uploaded. Took about 10 minutes, which wasn't as bad as we were expecting. But then, a wild error appeared: The machine is currently in use by other functions
So we keep going, and eventually we manage to apply all 4 firmware files. By this point, the call was approaching 3 hours, and I'm pissed. We could have sent a tech out to $Guy with an SD card, and have it done by this time.
I'm not going to write out the next part of dialogue, but suffice it to say it took ANOTHER hour to convince the guy to let us send someone. We'd been on the phone from 8am to noon, and we were sick of him. The tech we sent got there at 2 (was the earliest he could make it), and the guy kept him there til nearly 6! Apparently, the fix was the 'easy' part, but the guy wanted him to explain and justify everything he was doing. Eventually, nay, mercifully, everything works. If he'd just let us send a technician in the first place, it could've been fixed by 11. Mr Nightmare calls me back the next morning, to my direct line. I swear vehemently at my phone before answering it in my best i-hate-you-but-i'm-paid-to-be-nice voice. Thankfully, he just wanted me to send a test fax to him to make sure his faxing was good, and thank fuck it was. He spent the last part of that call trying to buddy up to me, something which I hate, as I've had customers do that to then try and manipulate me. Anyway, that's my only worthy story from this job. 99.9% of our customers are very nice. Even this guy never yelled, but fuck me he was tedious. Edit: better formatting [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 30 May 2019 11:25 AM PDT So I do desktop support for a semi largish company. There's 2 techs, me and another in our building. We picks up a ticket for a loaner laptop because the user left their laptop in their manager's 'office' the day before and now it's gone. He talks to her and it comes out she thinks she left it there but can't guarantee. OK, we get her the loaner, she's retiring tomorrow anyway, it will be IT security's issue at that time. Next day comes around and coworker is out sick. I pick up a ticket for same lady, she got her laptop back but has a weird error I've not seen before. Call her up and go down to her desk (she returned the loaner day before due to scheduling of it). Error is gone (she closed it, because user). I start working on it, cannot get network. So I remove the drivers thinking that's it. Reboot and nothing. Move to another desk / dock after trying direct network cable to the laptop, still no connections. Finally call up security and they're like "oh yeah, we we quaranteened her because she lost it." I've now since looked around and talked to various co-workers and no one knows how security found out. So I have to take her laptop back to my desk after they remove her from quaranteen so I can download drivers on my computer, put them on a thumb drive (we block for the most part anyone putting data on external drives in anyway), put them on her computer, and get her NIC back online. As I'm gathering things up her manager shows up and says, 'Karen, we were supposed to meet 5 mintues ago, are you coming?' Her response, 'oh, $me is going to get my laptop working again.' Her manager says, "Oh, the one you 'lost' in your friend's trunk because you were drunk and couldnt remember where you out it?" That was unfortunately a good 3 hours of my, my co-worker's, and securities time on an otherwise glorious Thursday. I've since talked to her manager and been informed she drunk texts her all the time now. Gotta love retirement? [link] [comments]  |
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