I didn't do anything to the site! Tech Support |
- I didn't do anything to the site!
- In which I forget the first rule of users when dealing with my husband.
- It's not the power button
- Old Job, New Job, Same Job
- Why telephone wiring and network wiring are not the same
- Interesting workaround for broken printer
- 10th time is the charm
- Failure to Boot
| I didn't do anything to the site! Posted: 03 Jul 2019 03:56 AM PDT I work from home most of the time. Today my colleague sent me a text message about one of the client sites I've been working on.
The first thing I do is check whether that client's other sites are still up, since they're all on the same cpanel account. The other sites are fine, thankfully. Time to check the DNS. The DNS records in cpanel all look fine, but upon checking our list of domains from the seller, I discover that something has changed. Specifically that [site]'s domain name, instead of being pointed at our host's nameservers, has a single TXT record with a Smoogle site verification code in it. I text my colleague again.
I switch it back to pointing at our host's nameservers, and contemplate how users always lie. [link] [comments]  |
| In which I forget the first rule of users when dealing with my husband. Posted: 02 Jul 2019 08:55 AM PDT Disclaimer: I'm not tech support by profession, but I have become default tech support for my family mostly due to my ability to google effectively. My husband asks me to look at his computer as it's "being weird". He shows me how Chrome is staying on top all the time. Me: Have you tried restarting it? Him: I just did. But it's still doing it. Me: hmm. *googling* Try X. No effect. Me: *googling some more* Try Y. No effect. (Insert a few more ineffective fixes) Me: *notice a program I was playing around with a couple weeks ago still active in the task bar* Are you sure you restarted? Him: Well, I think I restarted. Maybe I didn't. I don't know. Me: it's late. I'll look at it in the morning. Cut to the morning: I go to look at the uptime and it's been 34 days. I forgot the first rule. Users lie. Even to their wives. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2019 02:23 PM PDT I once had a my supervisor stop me to take a look at his laptop. He told me his Word file had frozen and he wasn't able to do anything. I took a look and as he described, we weren't able to use the mousepad or the keyboard in any way. So I hit him with the basics and told him to just give it a hard reset. "I did," he said. "But it didn't clear the issue." Since I was unfamiliar with the new touchbar Macs at the time, I looked for the power button. TBF, it is not immediately obvious on the Macbook pro but I did eventually notice the non-descript square button nestled at the end of the touchbar and in the general area where a power button would be. So I reached out, getting ready to hold the sucker down. "What are you doing?," my sup asked. "Pretty sure this is the power button." "No, it's not. I've already tried pushing it. I think it's for wifi." "okay....how do you normally power on your laptop?" At which point, he shows me how he pushes down on the mousepad...because his mousepad powers on his computer. In case it was not obvious, my supervisor is the dude at the head of our IT department. A part of me died that day. Edit: the mousepad does not power on his MacBook. He never shut down his laptop, just pulled it up from standby. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2019 03:36 PM PDT I spent the first four years of my adulthood working behavioral therapy as a nursing assistant. Mostly worked in retirement communities and nursing homes that had lock-down dementia units built-in. Thing about some of these nursing homes, the law allowed them to claim to be 'long-term partial-independence patients' and their insurance to be billed differently by the insurance companies. This allowed them to stay at a long-term home indefinitely under protective care, and the family was only billed partially if their insurance was good. A lot of these "Send 'em and Forget 'em" patients were these people's own parents and family, and they were lucky to get family contact ever again. Sometimes, however, there'd be the rare case where the family was always there. They actually never left their side and they actively participated in their loved ones' care. These were the rare families. Fast forward four or five years, and I'm starting my new career in IT Retail. I work in a used goods electronic store as a salesperson. Now, to be totally honest, the majority of our stock in the back sort of comes through in rotations. There's a fairly constant stream of donated junk that mostly gets recycled. We get a lot of it, and sometimes it's really really cool to see what kind of things people just give away. Old or rare things, or stuff that's still in good condition... even some of the really really janky things that end up in our crates, it's a cool job sometimes. Whatever is still useable is plugged in to see if it works, memory is wiped, and if we find anything that still has accessories or parts attached to it we'll rubber band them together and slap a price tag on it. These were the rare finds. We sort through stuff in crates, and when one crate or box gets too full to keep in the back, we'll go through it to do some finer testing to make sure it's useable. Some things we just get so many of, we don't really test them because it would take way too much time. Tablets and computers are one exception. The computers either get scrapped for parts in the little boxes near the tech bench, their empty casing lining the shelf behind them, or they get a checkup and reinstall and get put out near-immediately. The tablets, not really being upgradeable or repairable, either get completely recycled or sold. Testing is a pretty quick thing, usually. Plug it in, turn it on, factory reset it, and update it again if you can. If it's actual junk, then chuck it. We get *a lot* of old tablets, most of them too old to really be useable for anything but the barest basics. Sometimes, however, people surprise you and we get some very, very nice things. I'm sitting out on the sales floor helping people, answering questions, doin' the retail worker thing. This thin lady and this tall man come up to my counter and ask to look at the tablets. I pull open the case for probably the fifth time that day; everyone's been wanting to look at them. Most of them are kinda *actual* junk. Old Nooks, some extremely outdated Kindles, some knock-off Acers. Useable, if you don't mind the quirks of an obsolete OS and the low-speed. But, we had a couple of rather nice Galaxy Tabs that hadn't been completely outpaced yet. They seemed rather interested in the device. I explained our return policy, but the problem is our store is a rare one. They could only return it to this specific store, and a lot of people come from very far out of town to visit it, often a trip that would make it hard for them to return it. So, naturally, people like to test out their stuff before they buy it to see if it works. Generally, if I've tested an item for customers multiple times, I'll tell them everything I know about it specifically. What's broken, how far it can update, whether or not it can make phone calls, etc. etc. This was an older Tab 2, I think. Outdated, not going to be supported for a lot longer, etc etc. We got to talking, and the gentleman mentioned it was for his wife's mother, who lived in their trailer with them and their small baby. She had recently developed Alzheimer's, and was always asking them questions about what the time of day was, where they were, she was seeking reassurance from them constantly, and they were wearing out quickly. They wanted something to keep her occupied so they could get some peace. But, they were broke and had a baby to feed, so they couldn't send her to a nursing home and were caring for her on their own. I ended up helping them find everything they needed that day on sale, even the case and keyboard. I also helped them find an adult daycare center where she could spend her time with other seniors. I also got them in touch with a caregiver support group, and pointed them to a few websites like A Place for Mom and ALZ.org. Even ended up giving them a hug. I didn't expect to be helping someone with knowledge from my old job rather than my new job. It was, well... it was nice. I hope they're doing okay. TL;DR -- I was a psych ward nurse aide, and am now working at a secondhand electronics store. Couple needed some help with advice on taking care of her mom, and I just happened to be the right technician that day. [link] [comments]  |
| Why telephone wiring and network wiring are not the same Posted: 02 Jul 2019 04:19 PM PDT Telco techs who are new to network stuff - and have no training in such because they already know everything - are a menace. We had a store that dropped offline for several minutes at a time, several times a day. We knew it was the telco's problem, which is the worst one in the world, but the only option in this particular small city. But they wouldn't admit it. We went around and around, telling them the decades old bundle coming in from the street was shot, but they insisted there was nothing wrong with it. In the end, we were right, but in ways beyond our imagining. I was there (200 miles from the office) for other reasons, but took a look at the point of entry to see if I could spot anything out of place. Before we bought the store, the previous owners had upgraded from SDSL to T-1. Not an usual thing, especially then, but. It turned out, the little box that the T-1 terminated in (that belonged to the telco) was mounted about a foot to the right of the little box the SDSL had been terminated in, and the cat5 (which belonged to us) was too short. So the telco tech extended it. (The manager was certain - he'd been the manager at the time it happened, years earlier.) With wire nuts (technically, the little crimp connectors that look like wire nuts). There was about six inches of wire, stripped of the outer insulation, and carefully uncoiled, with the little wire-nut crimp connectors in the middle. Sigh. So we brought in a wiring specialist to pull new cat5 down from our upstairs communications closet. He, correctly, refused to punch it into the telco's little box. The next day, the telco tech shows up, punches it in, does some testing, and decided that the bundle coming in from the street was shot, and needed to be replaced. Bastards. (Now, of course, the wiring under the street, just as old, is also shot. One of the techs, off the record, admitted to one of our managers that they simply don't have enough good twisted pairs for all their customers in the neighborhood, so they move the bad pairs around, and wait for the new [link] [comments]  |
| Interesting workaround for broken printer Posted: 02 Jul 2019 03:12 PM PDT I used to work in an IT-adjacent field and had to field plenty of stupid IT questions from stupid people. It was almost worth incurring massive amounts of student debt that will follow me to my grave, to leave my old job behind for grad school. Or so I thought. Within my first week of starting school, I got a job in my school library. It was the perfect place to get paid to study and do homework and not much else. Most people didn't need any help besides checking out books and, since I clearly had no IT powers, most students were pretty understanding when I had to direct them to IT to solve computer issues or problems related to their student ID/print card. There was one guy, though, who was constantly trying to get other people to deal with problems for him. I was friendly with one of his TAs who told me that he treated TA sessions like 1:1 tutoring sessions and expected professors/TAs to cater to him during class/office hours. He did the same thing at the library. When he had a research paper due, without any cursory research, he would whine to the front desk staff that he didn't know what books to check out. He was essentially trying to get front desk staff to do his research for him. Similarly, when he couldn't print to the school printers because his credentials weren't authorized, he wanted me to solve the issue. I explained I didn't have access to his account and couldn't make changes, but I told him it was an easy fix and even gave him a guide the library had on opening tickets. He didn't understand why I wouldn't open up a ticket and deal with IT for him. So that's just some context on this guy, which sort of explains why I acted the way I did. The day this story takes place the school printers were not functioning. Students could scan & email or photocopy & print stuff, but they couldn't print from the school computers or their own computers. I opened a ticket for the issue, but I wasn't expecting it to be resolved until the next day because the on-site IT staff had already left for the day and the IT staff at the main campus (all staff at the main campus, actually) treated our tiny grad program like the red headed stepchild of the university. Most students were able to deal with it. Not Mr. Needy, though. He immediately launched into a whiny rant about a paper he had 15 minutes to turn in. Here's an approximation of our conversation: Needy: But I haaaaave to tuuuuurn a paper in. The professor said it had to be printed out. Can't you just fix the printer? Me: Sorry. IT has to do it. I'm sure if you talk to your professor she'll understand. Other people will probably have the same issue. Needy: I don't understand why yoooooou won't just fix it, though. Me: I can't fix the printer. I'm not IT. Needy: But you work in the library. Why can't you fix it? It needs to be printed out. Me: I check out books. I can't just fix network issues. Needy: But what do you expect me to do? How do you expect me to print my paper? Me: Talk to your professor. It will be fine. Then he started to launch into another round of what-do-you-expect-me-to-dos, like I exist to solve his problem, but I was done with him. I indicated to one of the people lined up behind him to bring their book forward so I could check them out, and he kind of stomped off. A few minutes later, after I had checked everyone else out, I saw Needy gingerly pressing his laptop's screen to the photocopier. His laptop screen did not open at at 180 degree angle, so he was trying to kind of get the screen as close to the edge of the photocopier and let the keyboard rest against the photocopier menu screen. He periodically lifted the laptop up to scroll down and the pressed it back against the photocopier. When he picked up the photocopied pages out of the tray, he looked at them and then dramatically crumpled them up (because of course his stupid idea wasn't going to work) and threw them away. This guy was at least 25 years old, and he couldn't work out sending his professor an email with an explanation of the issue, an apology, a promise to turn in a hard copy later, and the paper as an attachment. Fucking idiot. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2019 02:49 PM PDT 77-year-old lady. Says it all. She's gotten a new iPad and wanted to set it up but has forgotten her ID password. As polite as old ladies can be. She knew what the ID is and it was "oldlady.ol@gmail" and I confirmed it. Her account was not 2FA and she could receive her emails. I thought it would be a simple 10 minute job of her sending a password recovery email, make a password and move on. Cut to the page where she types her ID in and we are just over 6 minutes into the call. She types her email in, "... is not an ID." (OL is Old Lady) Me: "Try again, there must be a typo there." It took us 35 MINUTES for us to get to the next page. It was a loop of: "... is not an ID." > "Try again, there must be a typo there." > "You're right, I missed X or Y." > Remind her to tap on the text box and correct her mistake > Have her read to me what she wrote > Her reading it correctly and saying something to the effect of "This time I'm sure it's right!" > Remind her that she needs to tap Continue > "... is not an ID." Btw, she used to be a teacher, so spelling is not something she wouldn't know. Eventually, we got to the page to reset the password. I thought this would be my doom as now she can't see what she's typing, but after typing the new password and the confirmation in the same text box, she changed the password on her 2nd attempt. Confirming it on her old iPad and setting up the new one took no longer than normal and we ended exchanging pleasantries and her wanting to email someone to raise my wages. It was frustrating as all hell and made me go to lunch at 4PM on the verge of passing out from hunger but, and I told her this too, it's better to have someone who doesn't know much but be polite and understanding than to be someone skilled but impatient and incomprehensive. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jul 2019 04:12 PM PDT This story is from back in 2015 - I was a level 2 user support student technician at my university, primarily servicing faculty and administrative assistant's machines. A lot of the latter category are a bit on in years, so I would pretty frequently get some really, uh, "simple" tickets. This is by far the worst one, though. The person calling it in was a regular at our SOC. Among the admin assistants in the Economics office (which as I've stated is a pretty old and less-than-tech-savvy group to begin with) she was famous for being unable to do anything whatsoever with a computer - her greatest hits include calling IT to help her change a printout from portrait to landscape and refusing to take the computer aptitude training that the department required of the admin assistants because she didn't see the need for it, despite constantly asking her fellow admins for assistance opening Microsoft Word. She was a nice enough person, but had a tendency to get a little short when she got stressed, which she unavoidably did while dealing with technical issues. Call her "Gladys". It was close to the end of my shift on a Tuesday that summer when we got a call from Gladys - her computer wasn't booting. I took the ticket and went to check it out. When I got there, she was already in a huff and informed me that she had a lot to get done that day and could I please fix her computer as soon as humanly possible because she couldn't be late leaving today she had a doctor's appointment and the last time she got delayed because of technical issues she had to reschedule and that's why she has this appointment today actually and . . . After assuring her that I would try my best to get the issue sorted out by 4:30, I went over to her machine and pressed the power button. It turned on immediately. Gladys saw the machine boot up, and stared at me. "I swear it wasn't doing that before", she said. "I understand, sometimes technical issues can come and go like that. If it happens again, please call us and we can try to troubleshoot", I said. I went back to the office and closed out for the day. The next morning, the same ticket got created. I went back to the economics office and found Gladys visibly irate. "You didn't believe me when I told you about this issue yesterday, and it's happening again. There's clearly something wrong with my computer." I took a look at the power cable to make sure it wasn't hanging out of the socket (figuring that she might be pulling it out from under the desk to turn it on or something) and checked the A/V for the same problem. Nothing. I turned the machine on and it booted again. Gladys was incensed. "This is fucking ridiculous. You aren't any help because it always works for you! It's only when I try to turn it on that it doesn't." Something clicked in my mind - I asked Gladys to please show me how she was attempting to turn on the computer. I watched, open-mouthed, as she extended her hot pink, gel coated index fingernail towards the front of the machine. As her finger neared the machine, her hand lowered - just slightly! - angling towards. . . towards. . . The USB port. She was sticking her finger in the USB port. As it happens, Gladys did not have a computer at home, and prior to the day before (on which, I learned, she had accidentally shut down her machine), she had never tried to turn her computer on. She simply always left it on. And that's how I learned that it's always best to get the user to replicate an issue they're having rather than try yourself. tldr: User thought the USB port was the power button. [link] [comments]  |
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