That one time business supplies brought the place to a stand still Tech Support |
- That one time business supplies brought the place to a stand still
- Six months of temporary profiles? Why not?
- The curious case of the Friday evening system crash...
- "Where did the internet go??"
- For want of a monitor
- Can't troubleshoot a locked door
- My wireless mouse died!
- "We gotta slow it down. Let me take notes."
- Improper use of equipment or a lazy gamer sales rep?
- It's your first day? Strap in!
- Send a Programmer to do the Heldesks job.
| That one time business supplies brought the place to a stand still Posted: 08 Aug 2019 05:11 PM PDT Get a call from a restaurant because the POS is running slow as hell. I get in and check all the normal things; hub failure, etc etc. I then go to look at the server for these machines (this is 13 years before iPad and cloud POS became a thing). Get on the server and it is fucked. Slow as molasses in an Antarctic winter. I walk into the room where the server was and I saw it. 4 Italian restaurant sized bags of flour on the rack above the server. I shut it down and pop the top. There was an inch or more of flour in EVERYTHING. Coolers, power supplies, the works. I call the owner back and show him the situation. Apparently no one had ever told him that was a bad idea. I vacuum it out and then take it out back to a tire shop (it's a shopping plaza) and use one one of their compressors to blow the remaining powder out. When I get back they had already moved the flour to another area and were working on cleaning out the room. I hooked everything back up and the guy was super apologetic. Technically I should have billed him for it, which would have triggered upping his service contract cost, but instead I got a $200 tip (much cheaper than his expected cost) and I "swapped" a hub out as the culprit. Good dude. Realized his bad move and fixed it. Actually kept him as a "light IT" customer after I left the company and he contacted me directly. [link] [comments]  |
| Six months of temporary profiles? Why not? Posted: 08 Aug 2019 01:44 PM PDT I work for an MSP and this call happened to me on Tuesday: The contestants of this story are: $me: me, working as an "IT-Consultant" though I do everything for my customers from support to consulting. $customer: young person, not really tech-savy, works for an architectural bureau we support. Sometime around midday my phone rings. My colleague has $customer in the line for me. She tells me $customer has some issues with a temporary profile. $me: usual greeting and asking what I can help with $customer: When I log in I get a message that I am working in a temporary profile and I have to set up Outlook again and all of my browser favorites and local files are gone. $me: Allright I will quickly connect to your computer and see what I can do. I connect to her system, log in with a local admin account and open the registry to find the key that refers to her profile with .bak at the end. There is around 15 keys for different profiles but not a single one that ends in .bak. and not a single one that contains a string with $customers username. $me: So I can't seem to find a key that contains your username. Is this your first time using this computer? In the meanwhile I check the C:\Users\ directory and try to delete the folder of the temporary profile. $customer: No I have been working on this system since January In the exact moment she had answered me, I reached the users folder and saw a list of "Temp.domain.local" folders. At first I saw 10, then I kept on scrolling and scrolling and scrolling... There were 30, 50, 70, 100, and when I reached the bottom there were 125 of them. I slowly started to realize what must have happened here... $me: So uhh... You said you have to set up your profile again every time you log in. For how long have you been doing this? $customer: Well I did this everyday since I started working here. At first I found it weird but I thought everybody does this every morning when they start working. $me: You really set up your Outlook and shortcuts and stuff everyday for seven months? $customer seemed a little embarrassed at this point, but she handled it well. In the end what caused the issue was, that my colleague who created her profile, put in a profile-path in her AD account, even though they don't even use server-stored profiles and he even put in their old long decommissioned SBS server as the path. Probably because he cloned an old, disabled profile. After I removed the profile-path from her account, everything worked fine and $customer was no longer logged in with a temporary profile. [link] [comments]  |
| The curious case of the Friday evening system crash... Posted: 08 Aug 2019 08:28 PM PDT So back in about 1982 we had an insurance system running a a Digital (DEC) VAX cluster in the Adelaide CBD (I worked for an OEM who wrote the insurance system software). Every Friday evening the system would crash/reboot around 6:00pm. In fact the customer scheduled no significant work load at that time (i.e. delayed the day/week/month over night processes). I spend quite a few wasted Friday's on site trying to find out what was going on. I'd rather be home, out socially, or pretty well anywhere else at 6:00pm on a Friday. We worked with the DEC engineers to find a root cause, eventually tracked to a major power spike at that time (power monitoring). Some additional power filters/cleaners (expensive) were installed and the problem mitigated. But the root cause of the specific weekly big power spike eluded us. Why would the power spike at exactly the same time every week? Hmmm? A few months later, having dinner with some friends, and one of them (Kris) works for a big local daily newspaper (now part of Murdoch, Adelaide locals know the newspapers). We are just chatting about work and stuff and I mention the power spike as a curiosity. (Turns of the newspaper office building adjoins the insurance company building.) So I ask Kris if they do anything at 6.00pm on Fridays? He thinks for a moment, "Yeah we do a weekly fail-over to the backup power system to make sure it works." A little more investigation and it also turns out that the two building share the same power sub-station. BINGO!! Root cause found! When I relayed this back to our office, the customer, and the DEC engineers, everyone felt better that they knew why. Just one of those quirky things that happen in IT. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Aug 2019 11:44 AM PDT Backstory- I was in the army, working IT. Signal closets get messy over time. The patch cables and premise cables were in sad shape in several closets. Having cables patch into a 110 block, go down to the floor spool up and back into the switch was not cool. It looked sloppy and unprofessional. I decided that me and a junior tech would come in on a Saturday for closet cleanup. I asked for a volunteer to give me hand and they would receive additional training (along with a day off). I had made up a bunch of one-ended cables (RJ45 on one end only) to plug into the switch, clip off the excess, terminate into the 110 block, make them almost exact length they needed to be. This would require notification 3 weeks out, with a 2 week reminder, a one week reminder, and a day-before reminder. I sent out the network alerts reminding users in that location that there will be NO network connectivity on that Saturday from 0900-1700hrs. That meant no email, internet, login access etc (What part of NO internet users don't understand..?). Saturday 0900hrs. We're there. Materials standing by and cable scissors in hand, clipping out huge chunks of CAT5 cable. We're pretty much done removing the old cable, we had a nice big ball out in the hallway. We start putting in the new cables and terminating them. 1100hrs- A command sergeant major (the place is a ghost town, yet here's this one CSM), looks at us and walks by without a word. 15 minutes later, he comes out of his office and wants to know where the internet is. "CSM, did you receive and read the network outage emails I sent 3 weeks, 2 weeks, 1 week and yesterday stating there will be no internet in this part of the building today from 0900 to 1700?". He grumbled that he did but did not read them, he didn't think they were important. "Oh.. OK. Well, they were very important" He grumbles again that he has some very important work to do. "We're getting the internet up as fast as we can, we should be finished by 1700." He asked again where the internet was.. I pointed "In that ball of cable, CSM". He stormed off, never to be seen for the rest of the day. Afterwards, the job was uneventful and we were done by 1600. The lesson out of this- read emails with the subject line of **NETWORK OUTAGES**, especially when it comes your own IT staff. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Aug 2019 06:44 AM PDT At the call centre I work for, I work in software development and I do user support things between builds since I have a lot of free time. Recently, we upgraded most of our hardware and now must gather the old hardware to return (we rent equipment). We own some of our monitors, and the rentals all have a big sticker on the side indicating such. $Me, $ES - entitled supervisor, $M - manager So this was my day over and over again with all our supervisors (who generally get the best hardware) $Me (To $ES): I've been sent over to do a hardware change since we're returning all the old equipment. $ES: Okay, let me just save everything to the network drive and shut it off. Waits 5 minutes, despite the e-mail notices about this change today $ES: All done, I'm going to get coffee while you do this. I spend the next few minutes unplugging everything and swapping out EVERYTHING except the phone...when $ES comes back. $ES: Wait! You're taking the monitors too? $Me: Yeah, the e-mail states all the hardware gets changed since we have to return all the rental equipment. $ES: But I need my monitors, they're huge and it makes it easier to see. $Me: Understandable, but they are rented equipment and due back now. It's not my call, contact $M, it's his. $ES: I will, but I need you to put the old ones back. $Me: Look, I have a job to do, and I'm not changing the job spec just because you object. $M is here now, go talk if you want. I finish up and return to my office to find $ES arguing with $M. I overhear most of the conversation and get called over to explain what already happened. $M (To $ES): We are replacing your screens, but we cannot lend out the same monitors you had since they are leaving. $ES: That's unacceptable, I want those monitors. $M: No, you don't get to decide what is unacceptable unless you have my job. Since you continue to be rude, I'll have $Me put the biggest monitors we have on your desk. $Me: You mean the Dells? $M: Yup I go to retrieve the old Dell monitors we have, which are...not small. They're Dell P973 monitors. When $EM saw them, her head darn near exploded. Since then, it's been department policy to give whiners the most reliable equipment we have. When HR heard about it, they all laughed and said it's within co guidelines so they're nothing they can (or will) do about it. The next few upgrades went about the same way until the other supervisors caught on. [link] [comments]  |
| Can't troubleshoot a locked door Posted: 08 Aug 2019 12:40 PM PDT Short one that happened yesterday. I work as a remote Help Desk for 500+ company owned retail stores (among other responsibilities). A typical task we do is troubleshooting their data line if it goes down for some reason. Among the first steps we do is power cycling their switch, router and modem. Yesterday, I get a call and the new-ish assistant manager is in a panic that she cannot take credit cards, a common symptom of the data line being down. A quick ping test to the router confirms this. I direct her to the back room and start describing the equipment she needs to unplug. We start with the switch and then the router, where she interrupts me. She wants to know how much longer it's going to be, because the customer is getting impatient. I tell her it'll probably be at least another 5-10 minutes at best and she puts me on hold to tell the customer. When she gets back, I continue to direct her to find her modem and unplug that as well. This is where she tells me that it's behind a locked door and cannot get to it. I'm puzzled to say the least. While every store's setup is different, the modem is never very far from the router, indeed it's usually right on top of it. I relay this and she tells me that when she left the back room, the door shut behind her and her key is now locked on the other side. I pause for a minute to process this. She tells me that she will have to call someone else to come open the door and will call me back. I assent and end the call. A short while later, my ping tests shows the line come back up, so she must have figured it out somehow. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 08 Aug 2019 08:03 PM PDT Hello, this is my first post on this subreddit, so I will do my best to make this both detailed and entertaining to read while remaining true to the story. If I can improve my posting skills in any way, please let me know in the comments. Backstory: I work for a mid-sized finance company in the Central Midwest as a Service Desk Technician. My job responsibilities include desktop hardware and software support, which consists of performing password resets, triaging software issues, moving equipment between desks, etc. Story: Within the past few months, we recently moved our HR department into a new suite within our office building in order to accommodate for a Mother's Room (required by State law), a new HR Meeting room and allow for better confidentiality for the HR staff and employees. As part of the move, the Director of HR received a new PC and other desktop equipment including a 34" curved monitor, wireless solar keyboard & wireless rechargeable mouse (keyword: rechargeable). A few weeks ago, the director of HR submits a ticket to our queue, notifying us that their wireless mouse appears to be dead. In their description, they do notice there is a mini-USB port on the mouse, but they indicate that they did not receive the appropriate cable to charge the mouse. The day after the director submitted the ticket, they went on vacation until early August and came back a few days ago. While they were out, they left their office door open so I sent them an email letting them know I was going to enter their office and look into their wireless mouse issue (it is considered common courtesy at my company to email an executive or director if you plan on entering their office while they're gone). I make my way into the director's office and I immediately see the problem; the mouse is indeed dead, but the charging cable is in their office sitting on top of their PC in an open cabinet below where their keyboard, mouse & monitor are installed. I grab the charging cable, plug it into the front of the PC and then into the mouse and the mouse starts charging and working without issues. I mention this to my manager and they just roll their eyes a little bit, but also suggest leaving a wired mouse in their office as a backup in case the mouse dies again. When the director returns, I follow-up with them regarding the mouse and explain to them that there is a charging cable in their office and let them know it was on top of their PC in the cabinet below. They laugh a little bit and said they figured as much. They also mentioned that they were getting notifications on their PC about the mouse battery being low and it should be charged (the wireless mouse is an MX Anywhere 2s by Logitech, which comes with software that alerts the user if the mouse needs to be recharged). I did also let them know I left a wired mouse in their office in case the mouse died again. A simple issue fixed & another ticket closed. [link] [comments]  |
| "We gotta slow it down. Let me take notes." Posted: 09 Aug 2019 03:46 AM PDT Hi all, Been a bit. I usually post my most surreal story on Fridays. Backstory: I am one of only two IT personnel at a dozen+ building facility with over 1,000 endpoints. Naturally, they smash every IT position into one role. This leads into some.. interesting interactions. Most surreal of this week (it was hard just picking one): This will be a quick one. User who has been in the same position over 25 years comes to me the other day. His computer and routine have ever so slightly changed. He now has to download documents and keep a digital copy. Instructions were sent to him by 3rd party software, telling him to create new folders to store the downloads in. User comes to me, bewildered - "when it says 'new folder' .. how do I do that?" me: You right click somewhere, and select "new folder" User: interrupting "WHOA whoa whoa there.. we gotta slow it down. Let me take notes." I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote 1.) Right-click anywhere 2.) Click "new folder" 3.) Rename "new folder" to whatever you like. And ushered him off with a smile. Happy Friday, all. [link] [comments]  |
| Improper use of equipment or a lazy gamer sales rep? Posted: 08 Aug 2019 02:42 PM PDT I work summers for a small-ish medical supply company that has several locations across the country, but I'm doing in-house tech support at corporate. I've worked a number of different positions at this company, some undesirable, before finally becoming IT this summer, so I'm pretty familiar with how things work around here and I'm glad to finally be doing something that I want to do. My task for this last week before I go back to school is to contact all of our $SalesReps with field laptops and let them know that I will be remote connecting to their laptop and installing our new antivirus software on it. This is also my first time ever using remote connection since I mostly worked on stuff in-house, so I'm excited and slightly nervous since I want to get it done quick and professionally, but I realize that I know what I'm doing and everything is going to be fine. So I email a few reps and one gets back to me. $SalesRep: "Sure but I'm already using another antivirus and just renewed it. Also I was going to ask $ITBoss to remove McAfee because its so annoying. Online now". Alright, so I go to my web-based remote connection site and see two laptops for his branch, both named under our company conventions. One of the laptops is online and the other is offline, so I figure I'm just going to send it on the one that's online and I hit connect. The session boots up and all of a sudden I'm brought to a screen displaying someone in the middle of playing Minecraft. What? This guy tells me he's online and decides to slack off and start a game of Minecraft? The user then closes the window of the game and I take control, and check the user and computer name. Everything seems to check out so I'm bewildered and close out of the session, possibly in fear. I run downstairs to ask $ITBoss what I just witnessed. $Me: "So I just connected to $SalesRep's laptop and for some reason he was playing Minecraft?? Was I connecting to the right system?" $ITBoss laughs and shakes his head. $ITBoss: "That was probably an older system that $SalesRep lets his kid use. Try creating a session and email him to invite him to the session so you can remote in to the laptop he's using." I come back to my workstation and see that $SalesRep sent me an email explaining that the computer I connected to was his old 10 year old desktop thats at his house and he uses as a backup and he lets his kid use it. He connects to the session from his laptop and I complete the install. I email him that he's good to go and to have a nice day and I see he quickly replies. $SalesRep: "Oooh one more thing please. Sorry I forgot". Of course you did. He goes on about wanting to change his email for some reason or another but as I'm not going to be at work tomorrow, so not my problem! The rest of the installs I did today went pretty smooth though. No one was playing video games on their work computers, but I wouldn't put it past sales reps if that's what they actually did in their downtime. [link] [comments]  |
| It's your first day? Strap in! Posted: 07 Aug 2019 07:33 PM PDT It was bright and early on a Tuesday. We'd met our new tech a few days earlier and he seemed like a solid guy, but today was his first real day on the helpdesk. We spent a while getting him set up and showing him our environment, but after a few minutes, it was obvious that he wasn't going to need much help. This was a relief as I'd spent the past six months training a revolving door of contractors and temps, and I was sick of climbing the learning curve with someone new every day. The phone rang ER POWER FAIL and it seemed like as good a time as any, so I told him to take the call and I'd help him through it. Formal training is for other people... We'll call the new guy m8 since he was a Brit amongst a bunch of rednecks and hippies and his accent stood out so much that, for a while we were accused of outsourcing our IT.
In "terrible EMR land" where error messages never mean what they say, that means incorrect password. So, I told him, just unlock her AD account, maybe change her password. Easy peasy.
I'm giggling for joy inside. Some of the temps were BAD. This guy knows what a DC is. Thank GAWD. I might have a little training related PTSD. Or not. twitch He RDCs into the domain controller, unlocks her account, and has her try it again. I would have used RSAT tools instead, but hey, the end result is the same.
Cue more angry noises from NASCAR NURSE. In the end, the password change fixed it. Surprise. After he hung up, he turned to me.
I don't remember the rest of the conversation but somehow, I convinced him that it was legit and unplanned. I have to say I was mildly surprised when he showed up again the next day. We sure did know how to make a first impression... [link] [comments]  |
| Send a Programmer to do the Heldesks job. Posted: 07 Aug 2019 07:55 PM PDT My hospital is working on upgrading all our Windows 7 computers up to Windows 10. For some this is just a matter of re-imaging, but for about 1200 of them we actually have to replace the hardware. As many of you may know we are very quickly running out of time to do this, and since our helpdesk is currently only 6 people (including the supervisor) we struck a deal with our vendor. They would image and deploy the computers directly to our units, and one of us would just be there to domain the computers, less work for us and a little extra on each computer for them. So the other day we send one of our guys (pd), who is formerly a programmer, down with the vendor to do a dry run so we can work the kinks out of the process. Pd just needs to show them how to remove the old computer and connect the new one without damaging the furniture, cables, etc. Before I go on I should explain that most of our computers are running HealthCast, this means that a non-privledged account is perpetually signed in and staff just tap their badges at a scanner to gain access to the desktop. About 10 minutes after we send PD down to the floor our private to the helpdesk rings, so I answer it knowing it can only be one of colleagues who needs something. Me: this is George, what's up? Pd: can I talk to boss? Me: boss is on a call right now, is everything okay? Pd: everything is fine, I just need to talk to him before I can start this test run. Me: alright I will put the line on hold and let him know its urgent. I put the call on hold, and go over to boss. "Boss, pd is on the line and says he has to talk to you about this test run." My boss quickly, less than 3 minutes, finished his call and picks up pd's call Boss: what's going on? Boss makes strange choking sounds. Boss: hang on a sec not sure I heard you. My boss mutes the line and calls us all over to his desk, once we get there he shushs us and then unmutes the line and puts it on speaker phone. Boss: alright can you say that again for me? Pd: this computer has healthcast and is at the secured screen, how do I turn it off? At this point the three of us standing by the desk almost collapse in silent laughter. But my boss, to his credit held it together. Boss: well there are a couple ways. Tou could tap you badge and use the start menu from the desktop, tou can also press ctrl+alt+delete to get around the secured screen (I personally only learned that a couple weeks ago), either of those should work. Pd: okay I am through..... it has updates pending should I do those? At this point my boss struggled to keep it together. Boss: we will be disposing of the computers once they are removed, do you think they will need updates? Pd: alright I got it, thank you. Boss hangs up. My boss turns to look at us shaking his head. Boss: I told him to go down and just pull the plug on it, what part of that was confusing? [link] [comments]  |
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