I will get you fired Tech Support |
- I will get you fired
- Bad user or bad UI - you choose!
- Politeness is not genetic
- Ineptitude^2
- OH MY GOD!! What do you mean?!
- Can I get a replacement manual?
- Lord Jesus are you trying to break me ?
- Please use your eyes....please?
- No, there aren't cables in this room. Why do you ask?
- I'm a very busy man, I don't have much time!
- That's just not cricket.
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 11:39 PM PDT This happened to me a while back. Here CK is critical Karen So I work in tech support for B2B and we deal with all sort of issues including network, application issues and critical Karen. So one day I receive a call from critical Karen where she is working from home and her computer was not connecting to the wifi, we do the basic troubleshooting and then we narrow it down to her internet not working as her other devices were not connecting either. Then she yells at me that I was responsible for her home wifi not working. We strictly are not supposed to troubleshoot the users personal devices. Still I make her restart the router and check and the wifi still doesn't work. So I tell her to check with her service provider as it is out of support for us, she was pissed as shit when I told that, she wanted me to contact her service provider and check as I am IT and should deal with it. Tried explaing her that this is corporate tech support and we do not deal with personal device issue and will have to speak to her service provider herself. CK : (yelled at me) Do you know how much work I've got to do and how important it is and because of YOU I cannot do my work. I will escalate to the management and get you fired right now and make sure you don't get a job again. Me : Sure, thank you CK : (yelling some more) Me : (as calm as I could be ) is there anything else I may assist you with? CK losses it and hangs up the call. Then I mark her manager on the ticket and update the whole conversation we had and how rude she was. I told the whole thing to my manager as it shouldn't come to him as a surprise if she escalated to her management he was chilled out and told don't worry I'll take care of it as the calls get recorded. And more than a year later I'm still working here and I have no clue what happened to her or if she is still working with the company. [link] [comments]  |
| Bad user or bad UI - you choose! Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:50 AM PDT Setting: a call center, probably. The phone rings. $tech: "Good morning, my name is $tech.name, can I please have your personnel ID?" $user: "Sure, my ID is $user.id" $tech: "Just give me a moment to pull up your account." $tech quickly sees $user has been with the company for quite a while. Very few calls in nearly a dozen years of employment - almost all IT service requests that IT had to do, one call during the Great VPN Outage of 2016, a marked "no-fuss user." $tech: "And may I know who I'm speaking to?" $user: "Sure it's $user.name." $tech: "Okay, $user.name, how can I help you today?" $user: "So, our management is asking us to create a new milestone in the portal for a project so that we can add some supporting documentation and mark it as completed. When I go to the portal, open up the project and go to the milestones section, I can edit the existing milestones or delete them, I can't add any." $tech: "And I take it you've done the basic troubleshooting - have you reopened the project in the portal and reopened the browser?" $user: "And tried it in Chrome and Edge and cleared the cache and tried in private mode." $tech: "Hmmm, maybe it's a permissions issue, are you marked as being on the project team?" $user: "Yep, co-lead." $tech: "Okay, let me quickly remote in and see what's happening." $user: "Sure, the property number is PC12345678." $tech: smiles wide enough to be heard over the phone "We don't need it any longer, just accept the prompt you get." $user: "Ah okay. I see it and ... accepted." $user has portal pulled up, and project in edit mode and sure enough, the options are "Save and Exit," "Cancel and Exit," "Erase All Milestones." $tech scrolls down and sees at the bottom of the milestones list the "+ Add milestones" button. $tech: "And this button doesn't work?" $user facepalms loudly enough to be audible through the phone and groans. $tech bursts into laughter. $user: "Sorry, I was looking up at the top because when you create the project, there's an 'Add' button there. I'm so so sorry, the problem is the user is an idiot. $tech: still giggling "No problem sir, you're very much a 'no-fuss user' - I can see you've only ever called for IT service requests and during the VPN outage a few years ago. So no problem. Actually, I'll tell portal engineering that they should put the button up there, that's not very intuitive." $user: "Ugh. I've broken my streak then." $tech: "No sir, I'll just mark the action item for engineering. Anything else I can help with?" $user: "Nope, just don't tell anyone. Have a nice day." Plot twist: $user was me. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 12:51 PM PDT Call comes in and it's a daughter (let's call her Karen) calling on behalf of her father, who has forgotten his account password and cannot download any apps to his phone. I ask what is the affected account and she tells me it is "elderlyman2@gmail". I look it up and see that it is indeed an account but the one that's actually linked to the phone and that requires resetting is "elderlyman@gmail". I politely ask her if she can go to the Settings so we can confirm the account as she has mentioned both accounts at this point. ______________________________________________ Me: Me. Karen: Daughter EM: Elderly Man _______________________________________________ Me: Can you please go to Settings please? I'd just like to be sure of the account. Karen: I can't put you on speaker, the phone doesn't work very well. But I'm sure it's "elderlyman2@gmail"! Me: I just want to make sure, I don't want to be resetting the wrong account for you. K: I've told you it's elderlyman2@gmail! Why are you being difficult, do you not believe me!? Can't you just send the email to reset it? Me: I'll do that once I make sure of what account is on the phone. I believe you, but I can't move on without making sure. (I can, I just wanted to rub it in her face) K: Ugh, you're being unbearable! Just reset the password! I'm making lunch and I have a child with me, I don't have time for this. Me: Alright then. Regardless of the account, I need to verify the accountholder's identity and I need to speak to your father directly, is he on the line? K: My God, you're being insufferable! He's upstairs, I'll get him. *finds father and hands him the phone* EM: Hello? Me: Hi there, EM. Please do me a favour. I need to verify your identity but I need to know what's the correct account first. EM: Of course. (guide him through the Settings and confirm the correct account) Me: Thank you so much, your daughter was convinced it was the other account and we would've been on a wild goose chase. *inaudible talking from the daughter* EM: Be quiet, daughter, I'm talking to the man. *put call on mute and agree with the gentleman* (we eventually manage to verify his identity and schedule a password reset email to be sent to an alternative account) Me: So that's it, you just need to wait for the email, click on the link and create a new password. You'll be able to download your apps afterwards. EM: Thank you so much, young man. Sorry for taking your time and not knowing how to work the phone well. Me: That's perfectly fine, EM. Call us if you need anything. _________________________________________________________________ Tl;dr: If we insist you do something, it's because we have a reason for it. Being convinced of something doesn't mean it's true. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 12:26 PM PDT A most recent tale of the most inept person I've ever had the pleasure of dealing with. This fine example of divergent evolution had to configure a VPN token on her phone to remotely access our network. The process is fairly simple for anyone capable of tying their shoes or using a spoon. You download something on your phone, enter your credentials on our webpage and scan the QR code on screen with your phone when it shows up. Then you enter the resulting code under the QR code.
I tried to explain this process as simply as I could, but the user got stuck on finding the QR code. I asked her if she could see "A black and white square with 3 black corners" on their screen, which, of course, she could not. Being unable to describe to me what she was seeing with her own eyes, I managed to get her to send me a screen capture. I was sent a dropbox link with a terribly pixilated JPG. In this image, I saw that she had scrolled all the way down the page and, thus, could no longer see the QR code, because she had not yet attained object permanence. After much effort, I'd managed to get her to look directly at the QR code. She described it as: "A black and white square with 3 black corners", and assured me with great confidence that this was not, in fact, a QR code.
Now came the step of scanning the code. I asked her to press "configure by scanning" on her phone and to scan the code. She spent 3 minutes scanning the lint and partially eaten crayons on her desk, then asked me when the process would be over. I had to told her to lift her arm and scan the code on the screen.
Once the code had been scanned, her phone started giving her a 6 digit code to plug into the webpage. That code changes every 30 seconds. This arduous process took her more than 30 seconds. By some miracle, she managed to gain access after a few tries.
Finally, she could download the thing she came for on our page. I got her to click on the bigass "DOWNLOAD HERE" button, but she told me that nothing was happening. I told her to describe what she was seeing to me: "2019 October, a black cat". She had opened her download folder and started clicking on random things instead of the thing she had just downloaded. She told me that the process was taking too long and that now she was tired and hung up.
I'm tired too. So tired. [link] [comments]  |
| OH MY GOD!! What do you mean?! Posted: 02 Aug 2019 07:34 AM PDT This JUST happened and now I'm taking a break, so here I am... :Admin :ME One of the things that I do at work is build Cisco phones for new hires, replacements for failed devices (fracking data ports!), SNR, EM... all of that. We have large number of offices and most have a Deskside team who would provide the appropriate MAC address of the phone to build. For the offices who do NOT have support, we contact the manager - how THAT often goes could be a whole other post. A ticket comes in for a new hire who will be located in an office that does not have a support team onsite. I contact the manager who passes it off to his administrative assistant, who he says is new to the position, but "pretty good with computers." Not yet having lost ALL hope, I say great and give her a call... Me: Hey Admin, I have a ticket for NEW-HIRE reporting to MANAGER and MANAGER told me to contact you to get the MAC address of a phone to build for her. ...and this is where I learn that she is either having a REALLY super bad day and/or is just a total and complete, uh.... not-nice-person. This horrible attitude of hers, right or wrong, prompted my final comments to her. Admin: Well, that's just great, isn't it? I have no idea what the heck a MAC address is and now I'm supposed to go running around the building in search of something that I've never heard of? ...I have her go to the desk location in the ticket and on the Cisco phones that we use, it's a simple GEAR button, #4 to get the MAC. She does that without trouble and reads it off to me. Admin: I don't know how I got stuck doing this, I'm not the phone guy. Are you going to actually DO anything with the number that I just gave you or was all of this just busy work for me? ME: I'll log into the Cisco systems and build the profile for NEW-HIRE so that on her start date, she'll come in to find a working phone with her name & extension on the desk. Admin: Yeah, well, there is already some personal stuff on this desk and a crapload of dust. Me: She doesn't start until 8/12, that must have been left behind by the previous person. Usually that would have been cleared away, any maybe still will be, but without a local team there I'm not sure how that will handled. Admin: NEW-HIRE will be given a phone used by someone else? Me: Well... yes. Admin: That's so gross. Someone has had their hands all over it and has held the handset up to their ears. There will be germs, oils and all kinds of stuff all over that phone. That's just plain bad practice. Me: It's not feasible to provide a new phone to every person who needs a phone. The cost and overhead of providing a brand new phone to everybody would destroy the budget. Some of the offices have Clorox wipes that people can use for all kinds of things, including wiping down the phone, I guess. Admin: No, that's gross and just shouldn't be done. I would NEVER use someone else's phone. Me: I have some bad news regarding that... Admin: OH MY GOD!! What do you mean?! Me: Admin, I think you know what I mean. [link] [comments]  |
| Can I get a replacement manual? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 10:45 AM PDT Years ago I worked for a company that charged an absolutely insane price for a replacement manual. To be fair it was a big book, like 600 pages, 3-4" thick but the price was still crazy, like $200 crazy. Guy calls in "I need a replacement manual, I accidentally poured a pot of coffee into mine." *pause* Me: "Uhh, pardon?" User: "Yep, wasn't paying attention, it was open on the counter, whole pot of coffee." I tell him that the replacement manual is stupid expensive and he really doesn't want to buy one from us, conveniently we've already given him a .PDF of the manual when he installed the software, he could probably get it printed at Kinkos or something way cheaper. User: "Well, you know the manual wasn't the best quality anyway and was starting to come apart, couldn't you give me one for free under warranty?" Me: "Your warranty expired the moment you told me you'd poured a pot of coffee into the manual." User: "Understood, thanks anyway." [link] [comments]  |
| Lord Jesus are you trying to break me ? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:57 PM PDT Preface this with I'm a little (cross out) lot wasted so excuse any spelling Sooooo 3 years ago I went from an msp to an isp Burned myself out and worked remote but ended up bored Went back to the isp So I've been focusing on managing my expectations and allowing myself to drop balls. I get pretty pissy when I see shit done wrong or people not getting helped the way they should. This mentality is paramount for me as I know if I continue down this path I'll mentally kill myself Well...... I was originally just a network engineer and brought back on as a 'senior' network engineer. God knows why I got the title as this is a 'learn on the job' kk d of company I literally just learned ospf/mpls to a pretty decent degree. Plenty more to learn for sure Our company does triple play. And LTE So we provide FTTH(data/voip/tv) and we have our own tv headend (ird's : transcodes / middleware ) along with LTE data and voice off our own built towers and backhaul We do it all from scratch man So. My boss (the cto) went into surgery 2 weeks ago. Will be gone for 3 months. Still consider myself pretty noob. But she left me in charge. Her out of office has my email and number Today-the single person who manages our mediaroom and headend went on vacation So It's just me New client circuits New tr069 project to setup New 7210 r6 mpls rtr that needs to replace 3 other rtrs New 7210 sas-m that needs to be deployed An ericsson LTE core that we need to retire and replace with a new lte core. Make sure 911/e911/call flow/mms/sms/and some private lte networks work/make sure static ip's work via 1to1 nat/make sure the Mpg is reporting cdr's from our sgw and pgw are reporting properly. Make sure we have documentation from ericsson Oh and replace the dark fiber to our edge rtr in Boston / markey place Oh and replace or add 7 7705 mpls routers to new locations that need microwave links to cell towers for backhaul. So Today it's just me Sam our guy who does physical fiber wired shit up wrong for a redundant ring So I'm reprogramming shit to make it redundant in a less ideal way But our iptv guy is gone and two off air channels moved to new uhf frequencies so I'm fumbling in our prostreams to move it I'm honestly at my wits end. Pbs is down right now and I have no more shits to give. I'm paid well But not this well. I'm done... I'm done until Monday Where I wake up and hate going to work because I know I'll get nothing done while trying to tell other people what to do while I myself isn't sure... Great experience. Awesome I'll be the most knowledgeable sucker in the world by the end of shit Lawd Jesus help me [link] [comments]  |
| Please use your eyes....please? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 05:54 AM PDT Context: My work has a custom word menu. the menu is split into two parts, the first being standard templates, the second being printing macros. You accessed it by going to a ribbon in word called 'add-ins' and there were two separate menus. This menu was originally created and only amendable using word 2000. It is an important part of our environment, both for every day usage and for compliance purposes. It has to be on everyones PC. I've been wanting to replace it for years with something that doesnt require Word 2000 to edit it. I built a new menu using word 2010 about 18 months ago, and ran it alongside the old menu. The idea was to get people used to the new menu, as while it had the same options, the layout was different. each section had it's own ribbon, which was clearly marked. I sent out an email with screenshots and red boxes indicating where users could find things. i made it clear that if they didn't have the new menu or couldn't find anything, to get in contact. I hadn't retired the old menu yet as I had not found a way to push the menu onto a rdp environment until recently. When i got it working, and tested it successfully over a period of time, I sent another email out, going over the new menu, where everything was, and announcing that the old menu would be retired on the 1st August. So onto the story. i remove the old menu, and await the calls. odd. nothing. so i forget. until late afternoon, when i have two calls back to back that made me facedesk. Me: Hello, IT Caller 1: Hi IT, with the old menu gone i cannot print anymore. Me: just one second, i'll log on. (it could be that it wasn't there). Caller 1: i saw your email and wasn't sure that i had the new menu. you know how i am with I.T and technology. i don't need anything else other than printing. Me: [as soon as I logon i see that she does have the menu. the last most tab is titled 'printing']. [Caller 1], you use the printing tab. Caller 1: where? I always used to use the add-ins tab, which was right at the end, to print Me: well that menu has been retired. you use the printing tab Caller 1: where is that? i can't see it Me: It is on the tab called printing Caller 1: where? Me: [areyouhavingalaugh.jpg]. *takes control of her mouse and clicks on the printing tab Caller 1: OH! i'm sorry, it takes ages for the penny to drop. you know i'm not very good at I.T Me:[this is not an I.T issue, this is a use your goddamn eyes issue]. no problem! --------------------------------- Caller 2: hi I.T, i'm not able to print since the old menu has gone Me: One mo, i'll log on. [logs on, and sees that she is already on the printing tab. there are 10 options, all clearly marked with each macro] I literally cannot help you further Caller 2: But I need to print! Me: If you cannot print when you are at this point, I cannot help you. the options are right in front of you. Caller 2: OH. i didn't see them. sorry. Look, i know I.T can be difficult. But i've sent out half a dozen emails. all of them with screenshots. and i've been careful to make the headings of the menu exactly the same as the old one. The only thing you have to do is use your eyes. [link] [comments]  |
| No, there aren't cables in this room. Why do you ask? Posted: 02 Aug 2019 03:09 PM PDT One of the greatest joys of being at the helldesk is having to send out field techs via 3rd party contractors who part out the work to 4th party subs without passing along the information in the original work order. All of this is exacerbated by the 2nd party, who are site contacts that refuse to touch anything that doesn't have a pulse. With all these parties going on, you'd think someone would be kind enough to pass me a beer, but I digress... Our story begins like many others. Free "coffee" is consumed, outbound calls are handled, minor fires are put out (mainly caused by too many brands of "coffee" and not enough pots). Suddenly, the priority line rings.
<speed-reads furiously>
<Presses Hold> <Speed-reading intensifies> Find a parts shipment for an AP Extender requested by $CW after numerous complaints from $WB2 about coverage in this office, but no associated tech request.
TLDR: 🎶Picture yourself at a port, in a building, with Eternet switches and CAT5e lines...🎶 🎶Maintenance calls you, and so do their bosses, the sub-sub-shlub catches their lies...🎶 🎶Wireless APs appear at the door, supposedly plug-in and Play...🎶 🎶Look for a ticket or some kind of note and it's gone🎶 TLDR of TLDR: Site requests tech to install unnecessary cabling because room needed an AP. Tech arrives on site and finds cabling and AP are already present. Gets paid to plug the cable into the AP. [link] [comments]  |
| I'm a very busy man, I don't have much time! Posted: 02 Aug 2019 06:55 AM PDT Hi. I've posted here before, but I figured I'd give some background info again; Our company sells security materials, which includes CCTV material and everything related (servers for VMS systems, tech support for the IP-camera's etc). We're pretty much a distributor and we only sell to installers who install products for end-users. 95% of our clients have a basic understanding of IT and as such have no issue installing the security materials and only call when there's a product-specific issue. In fact, in this line of business, it's kind of required to have at least some basic knowledge of IT. In this case our customer calls us and tells me he has an issue with one of his customers (B2B and all that). His PC was doing strange things with the VMS program that was supposed to run on it and I had a hard time figuring out whether it was the actual VMS or the PC that was giving the issue. We e-mail back and forth trying a few things until his customer snaps at my customer and tells him he wants it fixed ASAP or he won't pay his bills. My customer asks if I can't call his customer. "Sure," I said. Normally we don't do this being B2B, but I decided to help my customer out on this. I call his customer. Let's call him OhHiMark. I'm me (duh).
So I download Anydesk and he gives me his ID. I log on and I check out the PC.
I hang up the phone but stay connected to his PC. I dial the number to our manufacturer and within seconds I'm in a call with them. I explain the issue, we go back and forth a bit and this goes on for about 5 minutes. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see him moving his mouse and I see it going to the START-menu. He opens freaking solitaire and starts playing it. During the entire conversation I had with our manufacturer, which was a good 20 minutes, he was playing the game. Even after I hung up he kept playing. The only reason why he stopped playing is because I called him again.
Suddenly he remembers I'm still connected to his computer and he quickly turns off solitaire.
We eventually fixed the issue and I didn't bring up the solitaire thing. He seemed relieved that I didn't. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Aug 2019 07:47 AM PDT I work 2nd line for an MSP supporting a hundred or so companies. Even though we have more than 1,000 client employees reporting to us, there are always some we deal with more than others. This is doubly likely to be the case if they're in-house IT, allowing them to deal with the 1st line issues before it is passed to us. Invariably, this means the tickets those clients pass to us are 10x more complicated...
The client in question is very much an email based company. About 3 weeks ago, their external IP address was blacklisted due to a machine sending out hundreds of SMTP requests, meaning they were then unable to send any emails out using their software. Thankfully, my colleague investigated it at this time, and through speaking to both NE and blacklisting company was able to ascertain which machine it was, so was able to run complete virus scans on the machine, cleaning it completely, by which point all SMTP traffic had ceased. This allowed the IP address to be unblocked, and the issue was finished. (Or so he thought...) This morning, I receive a call from IT saying that the software isn't sending emails. We share a mutual grumble about how unhelpful their software support is (story for another day), and agree that I can reboot the servers in half an hour, giving work time to be save, etc. I schedule the reboot, and ask for a call back if the issues continue. In a shock to literally nobody on here, the issue did continue. In this call, however, I was notified that they not only there was an error, but that this had happened recently when IT was off on holiday, so he was unfamiliar with the resolution. It was at this stage that I learn about the aforementioned ticket, so was able to read into it and see that the exact issue had occurred again. Armed with this knowledge, I immediately called NE to see what information they could provide about the machine in question, as they manage the network. Unfortunately, the only information they could provide at the time was IP address and MAC address, and that it was on the guest network, though on request they were able to block port 25 for the guest network. I contact IT again, and ask him to pop a laptop onto the guest wi-fi so that I could find more information about the machine, and potentially even the user in question, as no machine matching those details was showing in our software. He then joined me to the guest network but I was unable to find anyone else on it at the time (later found out this was due to disallowing client-client communication on that network), so I took that to mean the machine in question had stopped using the network. Went back to the provider a final time before contacting the blacklist company, only to find out the machine was still on the network. Nonplussed, I did some more scans but was still unable to locate the machine, so I called NE again to see if he could tell me anything else about the machine, this time he was able to tell me that it was being used to stream the cricket. From this, I was able to ask IT to do a floorwalk and see if he could find who would be streaming it, though warned him that whomever was doing so wouldn't be able to just exit the stream, we NEEDED to get onto their machine to scan it. He back only a few minutes later to say that one user had brought in a personal laptop so that they could stream the cricket in the break room. This made me realise something, and check the dates of the previous outage. The thing in common between the two days? England vs Australia. Clearly a user of good taste, if poor security sense. IT offered to phone the user (as they had now left the office), and was able to get them to hotspot using their phone, and confirm it was that machine causing the issue. When then asked for my advice for what to do with the laptop, I suggested that if he brought it within a mile of the office again, it could be removed via the window. (Preferably, with the user to follow) The only things I'll say in the user's defence is that at least they used the Guest wi-fi, and I've been informed they sounded absolutely horrified when they discovered it was their fault for the 12+ company hours wasted. I have also offered to personally visit the office if he brings it in again, though that could cause more problems... [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment