I'm the temp and you will comply! Tech Support |
- I'm the temp and you will comply!
- MOVE. YOUR. CAR.
- password expired :(
- "Then I'm taking you to HR!"
- The day an overachieving temp became a detective to catch company theft
- Install "Oracle"
- Last update: never
- The "I've always does it like this" statement
- This time, I forgot about the basics
- No, you didn't use that as a password, did you?
- Ancient tech story from another former sailor, US Navy
| I'm the temp and you will comply! Posted: 07 Aug 2019 05:02 PM PDT After my post yesterday, I had a few users asking to hear about the story I'd alluded to at the end. This takes place during a three month temp role I held working internal tech support for a wealthy international tech company. During my brief time there, one project I implemented was rolling all 400 employees in my office building from an old MDM (Mobile Device Manager) to the new EMM (Enterprise Mobility Manager). For those unaware, an EMM/MDM allows a company to oversee every aspect of their assets. This could be from enforcing HDD encryption, restricting web traffic, pushing out new company apps, forcing software updates, wiping the asset remotely, seeing what programs are being used, or even tracking the devices' physical location. It also handled the renewal of our network certificates; something that tended to break with our old MDM. Wifi/ethernet certs are necessary to even access the internet from inside our office building. So, if some bimbo off the street, somehow made it past multiple security checkpoints, and physically plugged into an office network jack, he wouldn't see squat. Unless you had an active certificate, you were completely stonewalled. Back to the 'forced compliance'. For this project, I needed to meet face-to-face (one-on-one) with the roughly 300 employees that weren't yet on the new MDM. They had to plug into a very specific (unlocked) port behind my desk, so I could make a few system changes. This would take anywhere from 7min to 20min for the ones that had trouble. To organize this, I created signup sheets in our online community with hundreds of 20 minute blocks staggered every 10 minutes (across a couple weeks) and had employees signup at whatever time worked best for them. Everyone was contacted via a batch of individual support tickets that I would eventually need to individually close. They were also contacted via internal messenger or other methods for follow up. Most everyone registered for a time slot and over the next two weeks, I was able to manually enroll hundreds of users in our new EMM. These interactions were my bread and butter, allowing me to single-handedly raise my teams KPI that quarter. Unfortunately, some employees were too busy (ie. important) to respond and a few even missed their scheduled appointments. Most of them were higher up in the company and could have easily terminated me (a lowly temp) if they were feeling temperamental that day. So, with my time frame on the project coming to a close, I got creative. Going into the old MDM software, I pulled up a few of the users who were ghosting me and experimented on one by expiring their network certificates. Not ten minutes later, that 'impossible to reach' employee walked up to our help desk, as he was no longer able to access the internet. "Sure, I'd be glad to take a look at that connectivity issue for you." As there was already a certificate expiry issue with the old MDM, no one found their sudden loss of internet questionable; just annoying. More so, once they showed up for support, a member of my team took it upon themselves to enroll the employee in the new EMM. This both fixed the user's problem and allowed my team to confidently say, "this shouldn't happen again with our new software." In the end, the only employees not enrolled were all on PTO or business trips at the time. Once they got back from vacation and realized they couldn't get on the wifi, they would need to swing by for support anyway. Win win. I never told anyone what I had done, as I wasn't keen to get reprimanded, had an employee lost a sale from my actions. TL;DR: Important employees are too busy for a short one-on-one meeting with me. So I decide to see how they like working without internet access. If you've yet to read it, here is my story about catching a thief within the same company. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2019 11:35 AM PDT So I thought ya'll might like this story. I think it fits here but if it doesn't please just let me know. This story takes place last year in the South of England. Because it was last year it isn't word for word but as close to it as I can remember. The players in this story are: Me, an IT help desk phone monkey. Give out tech support but don't go to physically visit users , calls that can't be solved remotely get passed to our device support team. My husband, Mike: device support engineer in the same company I work for - which incidentally, is the NHS. (National health service). Angry lady: aka, angry lady. Our story begins on a quiet weekday morning. The phone rings and I tingle in anticipation, at the thought of helping another friendly customer. (Lol). Me: good morning NHS IT help desk, how can I help today? Angry lady: you can get this car moved from outside my house! Me: confused im sorry, how did you get this number? This is an IT service desk, not a company related to cars. Angry lady: there is a sign in the car, and it says if I have any questions about this vehicle, to call this number! It is parked Infront of my house on my private property and I want it moved! Now! Important to note: all device support engineers are required to display an NHS parking pass on their car's dashboard, that tells people they work for IT in the NHS, and has the help desk number on it. The reason for this is that most hospitals charge to park in now, and this prevents the engineer getting ticketed. Mostly. I start to think this is a little weird, as engineers are not allowed to make home visits to staff that need support, they have to meet at their closest NHS building. Because network. Me: ok no problem, sorry about that. If I could take the car's registration, and find out what's going on. Angry lady: gives me car registration About three letters in, I realise this is my husband's car. Me: ok ma'am, just to confirm, can you please advise the make and model of car? (She does so, it's Def. Ours). Me: great thanks. And can I please take your address, so that I can advise the engineer in question. She gives the address. She is our next door neighbour. Complaining that we have parked outside her house. On a terraced street. Where there is no allocated parking and everyone parks wherever they like/can/wherever there is a space. I take a contact number, and promise to phone her back with an update. I call husband, who confirms that when he got home from work last night there were no other spaces on the road. He is not blocking her in (she does not have a drive way) and our road is not permit parking meaning any member of public can park there, and there are no restrictions, save some double yellows at junctions. I check with business support manager, asking how she wants me to handle a member of the public, angry about a car parked by her house, that happens to be driven by someone who works for the NHS. She tells me to go to town and do what I like. Excellent. While having this conversation, angry lady phones back and shouts at my colleague so loudly I can hear it through his headset. I ask him to transfer the call to me. Me: good morning, I was just about to call you back! Angry lady: about time when is this car getting moved from my property? Me: well actually, I've spoken to the engineer in question, who advised he lives on that road, so he would be entitled to park there.... Angry lady: it's outside MY HOUSE! ON MY PROPERTY! IT HAS TO BE MOVED NOW! Me: I'm very sorry this is causing you frustration. As I've explained to you, the viehicle is parked on public land, by a resident of that street you have phoned an IT help desk for the NHS and as your call is not IT related, I need to end it so that I can free up the line, so that I may support doctors and nurses who are trying to treat patients. I hang up on angry lady. I would like to say the story ends there but she calls back and shouts at 4 more people. So. In light of this. I contact the council, give them the address, and ask them to please confirm if the resident of any property is entitled to park outside that property and demand others move Thier cars. They email me back, confirming it is a public street, anyone can park there, nobody is 'entitled' to park outside their house, and as long as no driveways are being blocked, nobody can be asked to move their car. I print the email. When I get home I post this email through her door. Husband's car was still there. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2019 05:39 AM PDT People's passwords expire all the time, but sometimes they're really worried they've done something wrong. So I try to match their intensity. Por ejemplo- Description of Issue from User: Don't kill me :( I forgot to change it / totally meant to yesterday. What happens when you miss the window? So sorry <user's name redacted> Sent from my iPhone - Technician Response: I'm sorry but you're not allowed to have a computer anymore. Please bring it by at your earliest convenience & we will provide you with a TI-80 calculator & and IBM Selectric typewriter. You should be able to do most of your work with that. Kidding. Of course- I've extended it for you, just change it when you get back. Thanks, <technician's name redacted> [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2019 11:14 AM PDT me$ - me Eww - Entitled whiny worker SA - my manager Until a year ago we had 2 types of monitors, a 20 inch 16x9 LCD and a 10 year old 17 inch 4x3 ugly looking ones. We replaced all the 4x3s and put in 21 inch ones, but kept the 20 inches'. The department decided that unless there's a doctors note we will not move the monitors just because someone changes desks, which happens about 30 times a month, as well as people that beg for their newer monitors to move with them as well. So I was moving this lady's voip phone to her new desk, which already has a full setup with 20 inches. Eww: "Can you also move my monitors?" me$: "Sorry someone else was put at your old desk, he has those monitors now. Plus we only move your phones when you switch desks, all other hardware stays. It wouldn't be fair to the other people with the 20 inches" Eww: "But I have bad eyesight and can't see anything on this" I hear this all the time and this girl is young, no glasses/contacts, AND it's a small AF difference between the two sizes so I know it's bull. me$: "Well I can change the resolution to make everything bigger." Eww: "No it'd be easier to just give me my old monitors". An hour later there's a ticket from her manager asking to swap them out. I contacted him and told him the reasons we won't and he was good. Closed the ticket. Another hour goes by and there's a ticket from the floor GM. She personally went to him and then I told him the same thing. Closed the ticket. Later I see her on the way to the bathroom Eww: "I can't work, I need you to give me the newer monitors." me$: "Look, I'm sorry. My manager told me to not swap anything but the phones. Plus we don't have the adapters to put those monitors on your PC model." (monitors had vga and DP, PC had vga and dvi. Had no dvi-DP adapters.) Eww: "What's your manager's extension?" Later on my manager told her the same thing. Over the speakerphone he had her on I heard her yell, "Then I'm taking you to HR!" SA then called HR and warned of someone that might me angry coming their way, and explained we'll need a note to do what she wanted. Some time goes by and HR calls up my manager. HR: "Look, she said she doesn't want to get a note and we really don't want to have to deal with her, can you please just do it?" SA: with a sigh, "I guess. Hey me$, go ahead and switch the monitors." So later that day, I go out and spend 45 minutes imaging a compatible system at her desk just to swap out the monitors and of course, she gets mad that she can't work because "she has urgent things to get done". As I'm doing so I get asked by another person with 20 inches to have her monitors swapped for the newer ones. I just say no, without the explanation I gave Eww. [link] [comments]  |
| The day an overachieving temp became a detective to catch company theft Posted: 07 Aug 2019 06:06 AM PDT A few moons back, I worked a temp Support Desk role for a multi-billion dollar tech company. Basically, I was covering for another employee's planed three month paid leave. When I wasn't responding to countless tickets or wrecking havoc in Active Directory, part of my role involved asset management; including MDM/DEP enrollment of hundreds of brand new assets each month- mostly laptops, phones, tablets, etc. Near the end of my short stint with this amazing company, I took it upon myself to inventory the build room and clean up their hodgepodge of databases. Surprisingly, I was able to account for every Macbook listed, with the exception of one. I confirmed it wasn't out in the recent batch of repairs and should have definitely been on a shelf or in a cupboard. Checked again; nope, not there. Odd. So, to appease my OCD and craving for mystery, I decided to investigate. Using our help desk ticket system, I could see that a company contractor (let's call him Mr. Business) had the asset assigned to him one year prior. I reached out via messaging, where Mr. Business stated that, "the Macbook didn't work for [his] software and [he'd] returned it to our service desk the year prior." While this story lined up with our inventory database, it didn't explain why the asset had never been reassigned and was simply marked as 'retired' the entirety of last year. Very odd. Well, more digging for me. With the help of our Access Management tool, (I had far too many admin privileges as a temp) I was able to determine that this missing laptop was accessed about 6 months after it had supposedly been returned to inventory. I could see what programs were used at that time, how long the laptop had been booted, and what networks were connected. The user whom had signed in at boot with his credentials was also logged: Mr. Business. He booted it again a few days later, for only a few minutes; making it easy to guess the Macbook had been wiped at that time. Pulling up our network logs, I determined that this asset had not pinged our internal network for around 10 months, which correlated with the unknown IP he had logged. So, the picture painted was this: Mr. Business, who made well into six figures, borrowed a laptop that (for whatever reason) he failed to return. Instead, he decided to risk his career (well, at least his honor?) by lying about it and bringing the Macbook home with him- where it sat undisturbed for six months. Like a grade A genius, he booted it, connected it to his home wifi, and used it for one day- before wiping its memory. Mr. Business was in the clear, until months later, a brown nosed kid decided to be an overachiever in a temp roll and clean up a few databases, to leave a good impression. I ended up compiling some irrefutable proof this guy was guilty. No clue what came from it or if Mr. Business even still works for this company. I passed on what I'd found to my boss and knew better than to ask questions about how it was handled. Wasn't my place. Anticlimactic, I know. Thanks for reading anyway. TL;DR: A well paid business man stole a company laptop; then lied to myself and others about stealing it. Bad businessman, bad. This actually reminds me of another solid story with this same temp job, where I revoked high-level users' network access so they'd schedule meetings for me to 'fix' their computers. Fun times. UPDATE: Ask and you shall receive. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2019 10:11 PM PDT So this happened today.. I am paraphrasing.. but more or less just like this LOL Job comes in. Dev: install "oracle" on 2 x machine … pc1 pc2 Me: Oracle what exactly? That's a bit broad.. Dev: just Oracle, it's a standard thing just install it. Me: those machines are Win Servers not PC's and NOT Redhat, we install Oracle dba on Redhat.. Dev: look I just need Oracle on that machine.. Me: (clearly he is special) ok what are you trying to do, maybe that will help me narrow it down? Dev: Look I don't know about your stuff, all I know is I want oracle on those boxes.. go ask so and so he has does it before.. Me: I go ask so and so and get a WTF? response.. We don't put Oracle on Win Servers… same as what I said So I go back to the Dev. Me: unless you can tell me exactly what you want.. and WHY, I am going to close this job.. install "oracle" is pretty broad and I'm not installing random sh1t till you tell me exactly what you want.. go find out.. Dev: its your responsibility, you look after the servers… I don't know server stuff!!! Me: Dude.. really? Get more info…. Soooo many hours later.. Dev: I want the same client that's on this machine. Me: that's a win10 desktop, you want that client on the Win server? Dev: yes.. Me: I don't know if that will work as you expect and it might break sh1t, are you sure? Dev: yes.. I mean, I want oracle so sure.. Me: ok, so if it breaks you accept full responsibility for any outage? Dev: yes.. Me: ok, Hold my coffee /sigh (urgh not sure why all the formatting of this is naff) [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 07 Aug 2019 09:44 AM PDT Just a short one to palm your face to. English is not my first language and I'm on mobile Today, I was updating a software. The server side of the update run without any problems. The new client installed like butter One of the two existing clients run the update like theachine was magic. Existing client number two threw a, fit. "Microsoft.net Framework v112345 required" Well... Strange, but well... Go to Microsofts web side, download the last version, hit install... Erorr... Damn... Then I opened up windows update and started the search for updates. 42 updates and 5 optional ones. As I saw this numbers, I took a closer look. "Last update: never" on a win7 machine that's 5 years old... I hit the update-button and walked into the kitchen, to get me a coffee... or two... [link] [comments]  |
| The "I've always does it like this" statement Posted: 07 Aug 2019 09:05 AM PDT I get a call from a user today, she's in a managerial position over an entire branch and has been for over 10 years, she's having trouble opening a file in Word and she states she opens and works in this file on an almost daily basis in Word. I ask her the normal troubleshooting questions, "Are you navigating to the correct directory?" "Are you sure the file wasn't accidentally deleted?" "If you navigate to the file and double click does it open?" She answers yes to all these questions, but she wants to be able to open the file while already in Word. I remote into her PC and ask her to show me the file in question and I immediately see the issue, it's an Excel spreadsheet she's trying to open in Word. I tell her this and she is taken aback, "I've always done it like this, opened this document in Word every day for the past *however many years* so it has to work!" I assure her that it has never worked like that and show her, Excel is green and Word is blue, you can't open a file from one program in the other. She doesn't believe me but states that she guesses she'll just work on it in Excel from now on. [link] [comments]  |
| This time, I forgot about the basics Posted: 07 Aug 2019 04:13 PM PDT I work for a live entertainment video company, I started as a tech assistant and truck driver and worked my way up to a nice position with an office where I'm constantly testing new gear for new products, and I fly out to fix stuff if needed. Every tech in the company is also a tech support person, including me. Typically at a show or install if you have an issue you try to solve it with your own skill set, then you start asking the other techs onsite, then you call other field techs, then you wind up calling me, or one of two other people who know this gear inside and out. I don't get too many calls these days because we generally have very good techs. When I do gets calls, it's typically a situation where someone has been hammering away at a problem for hours and they are at the end of their rope. Several months ago we setup a temporary show that runs for over six months. I flew in after the install techs finished so I could touch up their work and color balance the whole thing. During the run of the show we have some local techs babysitting the gear so they can respond to any immediate emergencies. It's setup so I can remote in if anything needs to be reprogrammed, and the local guy can be my eyes. So last week I get a call from the babysitter… Babysitter: I'm having an issue with the big screen Me: What's going on? Babysitter: It shows the test pattern just fine, but the actual video feed looks messed up Me: Ok, is it the center hung screen, or the center side screen? (two wildly different products) Babysitter: It's the center hung screen. This product can't generate it's own test pattern, so the problem MUST be in a piece of gear upstream, I don't remember if we have a scaler that can create a test pattern in the signal chain or not, and I wasn't at my computer, so I couldn't look up the drawings. Me: Do you have your personal laptop there? Does it have an HDMI out? Babysitter: Yes and yes Me: Ok, plug your laptop into the processor and tell me what you get on the screen Babysitter: Ok, I'll try to find a cable. I hear some stuff being moved around int he background, then this… Babysitter: Hey, do you think I should try turning it off and on again? My head just about explodes, he should have tried that LONG before grabbing his phone Me: Yes, definitely try that! Then I hear him flip breakers. He didn't power cycle the processor that was acting up. Nope. This chucklefuck power cycled our entire setup, twelve jumbotrons and all of our production gear! Fortunately everything came back online just fine, including the processor that was acting up. After confirming that everything was fine I instructed him to ONLY ever power cycle the gear that is acting up, and to ALWAYS do that before calling anyone. I don't know this particular tech, but I hope he was just having a bad day and that's why he called before doing the basics that every other tech starts with. Usually a tech has already power cycled gear, factory reset it, swapped out gear, and so on, long before I get a call. I made the mistake of assuming he had already tried that stuff, my bad. TL;DR: I forget to check if he had power cycled the gear that was acting up. [link] [comments]  |
| No, you didn't use that as a password, did you? Posted: 07 Aug 2019 08:31 AM PDT Yearly visit to the in-laws, good times, good food and beer. And the inevitable "while you're here." Three problems with this FrütDesktop. She hands me the printed list of passwords and I get to work. She can't update FrütFoto, and one of the other updates won't kick off because of FrütCloud doesn't have the right login. I kill the old version of FrütFoto (Photo is already there, not sure why the old one stuck around). Start the install and need her admin password. Check your luggage combination folks. Admin account on machine that's online. Yep, 1234. I facepalm and get the machine updated. I will not admonish her. That's the story, but there's a bonus that doesn't quite fit in. She asks about a piece of software she used to save files back in the 90s. Yep, we're going WAY back. To the suite called Works, by a Früt spinoff called Claris. Did you know that libreOffice will open those? Neither did I. It does. Just save that one for trivia night. tldr; Discover that MIL's admin password on home machine is 1234. Faces are palmed. [link] [comments]  |
| Ancient tech story from another former sailor, US Navy Posted: 07 Aug 2019 04:47 AM PDT Thought I'd post an uplifting tale of success for you to enjoy. This one was my biggest success working on equipment that was literally old before I was even born. So I was trained to work on equipment that handled communications for ships. Nothing super fancy, basically it connected radios to antennas for various operations. Since these were Marine haulers we'd have a dozen or so different commands with their own setups. I was lucky in that I got turned around out of my schooling to become maintenance at said school. So after spending months learning on broken down crap it bcame my job to make it work for the next few dozen classes and I jumped into it hard. Now when I say old I'm talking just after transistor invention old. No fancy ICs here, we had "cordwood modules". These things: https://i.imgur.com/B7tWVqA.jpg The machine I was working on had been broken for decades and I decided I wanted it to work. On top of having ancient tech, literally hundreds of those little boxes and each one was a gate. XOR, OR, AND each a little box of discrete components with hair thin wires running all over the place. https://i.imgur.com/hZBInpg.jpg We also had ALD or Automated Logic Diagrams for it all from IBM. https://i.imgur.com/ZAhhtkh.jpg So you see, a signal came from another page somewhere on the left, went through whatever gates it needed then went out the right to another page somewhere. They did group things a bit, so the display stuff, power stuff, input stuff would be grouped together but it was also designed by engineers so the "logic" part was not always apparent. So, the deal was, this system had an old monochrome green monitor tied to it that never worked. The teletype worked, the card reader worked, and the paper tape reader worked so that was how they did all their training but in the field they'd have monitors that no one knew how to use. Shiny new crow on my hat and I jumped in to the display area! And found nothing. Actually I found a few spots where things were wrong but tracing them through dozens of pages I'd find it working earlier on. After weeks of hunting I was literally down to testing EVERY signal on EVERY page and learning ever so much about oscilloscopes. This was in between routine maintenance duties on things like hydraulic disc drives and reel to reel tape drives. So as I'm digging through signals one night I notice at the bottom of a page a line. It crosses the page from one side to the other with nothing on it.I follow it forward and it ends up eventually in the display area where it loops back. So I follow it backwards and deep in the drive interface logic I find an XOR gate. So I test it. Good signal in, no signal out. Hm. I go digging and find the module off in the middle of nowhere and get a replacement in which takes forever since fleet has priority. Best guess? An engineer needed to flop the signal for whatever reason and ran out of XOR modules over in the display section but found an unused one miles of tiny wire away and just looped it in. Got mad props for getting the system up and running again and learned never to trust an engineer to make sense ;) [link] [comments]  |
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