$3000 wasted Tech Support |
- $3000 wasted
- I don't care if it's on FIRE! It's a minor problem
- Printer, what printer?
- Let's Click This Link and See what it Does
- Urgent Printer Ticket
- We have a spy... or a ghost... or something.
| Posted: 01 Oct 2019 09:56 PM PDT I was a Custodian at a good sized School District and had slowly worked my way onto the day shift as an Assistant Supervisor. I was tech savy and people would generally ask me to help them with computers (except macs, never owned one). I had a good working knowledge of audio/visual as well, so I was tasked with setting up the technology for most of the meetings/gatherings etc. Every single classroom had these 20 year old CRT televisions that were mounted to the wall. They were "industrial or institution" models. All they had on the back were BNC connectors (labeled Video/yellow r/Red L/White) and a RF input. (Most people know that BNC is just a RCA jack that is designed to lock into place to be tamper proof) They had bought all these new DVD players and wanted to connect them. So the "official Tech/AV guy" got a plan approved to buy RF converters (Basically turns the RCA Output of the DVD into a signal on the coax Channel 3 or 4). Now with 80 TV's that runs into some money! Each RF converter (I don't know where they ordered them) cost them $15! When The order was delivered on the dock I went directly to the Principal and got the info. I informed her that we could buy RCA to BNC adapters for $.50 each (so each TV would cost $1.50). So AV guys plan = 80*15= $1200 My plan = 80*1.50 = $120 The AV Guy refused to even consider that it would work -- Swore up and down that BNC was a nonstandard format and was useless for this. I asked the Principal to not open the converters for a day. I drove to Radio Shack (I'm old, Huh LOL) and bought 3 BNC-RCA adapters. ($3) The next day I pulled the principal vice principal into a classroom and had them watch me hook up a dvd player. The AV guy was pissed off (I'm pretty sure that he was pissed cause I'm just a janitor and not only that -- he didn't think of it!) It worked perfectly. That AV guy thought it was fluke -- he pulled it off and we moved to another room and he hooked it up - Because you're just a janitor. Guess what it worked there too. I explained the differences (or lack thereof) of RCA vs BNC (same analog signal, with a tamperproof connector) to the AV guy and he reluctantly said my idea would work. He still wanted to use the RF Converters. The principals backed me up and returned the converters. I had to fight that AV guy everytime I needed to setup something from then on -- until he got fired for destroying a $30,000 server. Idiot had a pepsi can tip over onto it while he was re-cabling! Just cause I'm a janitor doesn't mean I'm stupid. (Edited BNC Labels) [link] [comments]  |
| I don't care if it's on FIRE! It's a minor problem Posted: 01 Oct 2019 09:54 AM PDT Long time stalker first post so here goes. This will be a bit long so I can give you some background into this story. TL:DR at bottom I was a service tech for 15 years, pretty much anything in an office (computers, printers, copiers, typewriters, camera systems, etc.) but was not formally trained in the field when I first started. I originally went to school for electronics and computers so I had some trouble shooting skills. This tale is of when I went on my first solo call after 3 months of training. I got a LOT more stories so I'll see how this goes and go from there. When I was hired I was trained as an office equipment tech for mostly copiers, printers, and faxes. I went for ride along with two senior techs for three months to learn the ropes, depending on what we were looking at I'd be with either one. Chris was my main boss, he was a bit of a sales guy but mostly tech. He showed me the ropes and how to make suggestions based from a service stand point, if something could work better for a customers needs by suggesting upgrades or another piece of equipment to handle any issues they were having. Now the other tech Scott was a no nonsense, let's get this stuff fixed and move on kind of guy. The first thing he told me and constantly repeated before a call was "When talking to the about the equipment's issues it's always a minor problem, no matter what the customer says it's a minor problem. I don't care if it's on fire, it's ALWAYS a minor problem." His reasoning for this was to try and de-escalate any issues they may be having so the customer would hopefully calm down thinking we'd have it fixed in no time. After 15 years I'd say 7/10 issues really are just minor problems, but not this one. My first solo call was to go on site and replace a belt on an old dot matrix printer (the old ream feed, normally used for reports printer). The customer called in saying the belt that drove the print head busted and they just wanted to order a new one and have it installed once it came in, no initial diagnosis was done by us, its what they wanted. Ok, we order the part and once it comes in my trainers say this will be a good first call to do solo, just a part replacement and cleaning should be easy. Cue deer in headlights and stomach in throat montage. I get on site and thankfully the printers in a fairly accessible location with a nice big counter for me to work on it. I tear this printer apart, vacuum, blow, and wipe probably 10+ years of dust and crap out of it. Oil up all the shafts and bits that need it. Replace the belt and pop everything back together, not to hard. Now comes the moment of truth, time to test it. I had one of the office girls send a print job to make sure everything is working and it rolls into action. It's sailing back and forth looking like new and I breath a sigh of relief thinking all is well. That is until the printer gets about four pages spit out the back when all of a sudden the print head stops mid stride and a horrible grinding sound is heard coming from the printer, followed by a flame about 5-6 inches coming straight out the top of the printer. Cue me scrambling like a madman to unplug everything from it and make sure the paper doesn't catch on fire. Thank the tech overlords the paper was feeding out the back and I didn't have the top cover shut entirely so I could watch it work. I'm standing there mouth agape and my body soulless, WHAT DID I DO!!! The office girls half snickering half dumb founded and standing behind them is the OWNER OF THE COMPANY!!! Cut to internal monologue of "Well, I'm dead and fired". He just saw this whole thing, flames and all and all he does is go "Huh, cool!" and proceeds to walk away into his office. I somehow manage to say Scotts line of "Don't worry, just a minor problem. I'm sure we can fix it" and I excuse myself so I can go outside and make a phone call. I ring Chris and Scott, they were normally together when we were slow, and I get ahold of Chris. This is what followed: Cue dead man walking scene from any prison movie I go back inside and head over to the owners office to see what he wanted to do. I explain that I can take it back to the shop and see if we can revive the charred corpse of his printer, no charge for anything so far. Once back at the shop I took everything back apart and started trying to figure out what the heck happened to make this thing burst into flames. Turns out the print head had bad bushings that rode on the shafts going side to side and that caused it to seize up and wouldn't let the head move. My guess was that the because of the old belt it would just slip due to age and really crappy teeth in the rubber. The motor would keep running even though the printhead was stopped. Well put a brand new (tight, strong, new rubber teeth) belt into this equation and what you get is a motor trying to spin but not able to which caused it to overheat, which made the wires coming off it to get warm and that made the whisper thin coating melt. Once that coating melted the voltage wire hit frame and voltage grounded to frame makes for a VERY hot wire, that proceeded to burn about 4 inched along the bottom of the printer. About an hour after I get back and am done messing with the printer Scott walks in grinning ear to ear. Edits for the grammar police TL:DR - Went out on first solo service call after being taught that all problems are a minor issue, even if somethings on fire. Actually had what I was working on catch fire in front of business owner who thought it was "Cool". Then called techs that trained me to explain situation only to have one laugh, congratulate me, and offer to buy me a beer while other just shook his head. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Oct 2019 02:59 AM PDT I got sent on a call out job years ago We had a commercial customer who had some employees who were far from technical so there was always some educating to do We had a HP 2600n printer installed, for it's time it was a great printer. Four colour laser and network attached People in the office printed to it via the wireless So we had a call that a new senior staff manager was struggling to print and rather than remote support or phone he asked for someone to come on site I arrive and go into the office that the manager had setup in, the same office the printer was installed in The printer was gone Me: where's the printer? Manager: it wasn't working so I threw it away Me: What?? Where did you put it,. That printer works great and serves most of the building Manager: I put it in a skip I don't remember where so it's gone, can you setup this printer on my computer instead What he had was a very old thermal fax machine Me: that's not a printer, you can't print to it Manager: well can you buy me a printer so I can work Now call me paranoid but I think they guy stole the printer and lied about it We bought a new 2600nto replace the missing one [link] [comments]  |
| Let's Click This Link and See what it Does Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:31 PM PDT My local helldesk sent me a ticket this afternoon for an end user who couldn't log into the system. I'm in the process of training a new co-worker how to troubleshoot the system so I let her handle it, but not before we both checked out the users account and confirmed that there was nothing obviously wrong with it. I told Co-worker that the problem will either be an AD issue, a location issue, or a PICNIC with my money on door #3. Co-worker called End User and I listened in on speakerphone. Co-worker got End User's side of the story ("I can't login.") and asked them to attempt to login with us on the phone. End User enters her credentials and then says "It wants me to answer a bunch of questions. This is where I get stuck." It was the user's first time logging in. Those questions were security questions and they only had to pick one to answer. After the user did that, they said "oh, it's working now." No kidding. Co-worker shook her head in disbelief. Gotta love the PICNICs. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Oct 2019 07:03 AM PDT This happened yesterday. As usual, right before end of day, someone decides their ticket is super urgent even though their "problem" has been ongoing all day. 4:30 pm, ticket comes in. "Urgent, side panel on printer won't latch since 10:00am" I the hero walk over, trying to fathom what this could be. Arriving at said printer, my eyes rest on the side panel, behind which sits the fuser unit. The top corner on one side is latched, the other top corner is unlatched. Reaching out, I use all my superhuman tech support will and strength to tap the the panel corner back in place, before it's too late. I go home, another job well done. I should wear a cape. Hmmm could be a good Halloween day idea. [link] [comments]  |
| We have a spy... or a ghost... or something. Posted: 01 Oct 2019 02:20 PM PDT Unlike most of the stories here, there are no villains or idiots in this one. We hit a very strange problem and only solved it with a bit of dumb luck. This took place around 2005 or so - just before the first wave of commercially-available grid computing products. I was working as a developer at a small black box hedge fund and, as is often the case at small hedge funds, my team was also responsible for supporting the trading application we'd built. We have about fifty active traders at the time. Each trader has three PCs under their desk running our proprietary trading software. Each PC has two screens and is responsible for trading options on ~50 underlying stocks. Our software uses a plug-in model that allows the quants to write pricing strategies in C#. I've worked with enough quants to know that they're generally brilliant mathematicians and terrible coders. So, when they introduce a pricing strategy that slows the trading machines down dramatically any time it works with an underlying security that pays dividends, I suggest we (the developers) review their code to make it performant. Absolutely not, the director of the quants tells us. This is QUANT CODE. We would never understand it. Fine, we can't change the code and the quants are never going to learn how to optimize, so we come up with the solution. The trading machines will hand off market data about the "problematic securities" to dedicated machines that will do nothing but crunch price models and then pass the results back. Because the trading machines are all Windows and the quant code is in C#, these machines will be Windows as well and they'll distribute the market data and the pricing models via Microsoft Messaging Queue (MSMQ.) We throw this together and it works remarkably well with one limitation - these are Windows desktops, not servers. They can't connect to more than ten peers at a time via MSMQ. That's fine for about a month, then we're called into an urgent meeting. The lead trader tells us that someone is hacking into our systems and stealing our pricing data. He knows this because the trading machines are periodically getting selectively disconnected from the pricing machines, but they continue to show a full complement of active connections. A hedge fund's pricing data is its life's blood. So, we go onto red alert. IT goes over the network access logs and can find no incursion. The developers go over the application logs and don't see any anomalies. All the IP addresses the trading machines are connecting to are in the correct subnet to be pricing servers. Management even brings in an audit team to go over our results in case the whole thing is an inside job by IT or trading systems development to steal the firm's intellectual property. Roughly six weeks into the investigation, we find a breakthrough. The pricing servers are assigned their IP addresses dynamically and normally wind up with (for example) 10.10.16.1 through 10.10.16.10, but sometimes they skip an address and wind up shifted so that they miss one of the sequential addresses and wind up claiming 10.10.16.11. The trading systems continue to treat this "missing" IP address as a pricing machine. They send market data to it, but they never get a price back. We set up an audible klaxon in the server room to go off whenever 10.10.16.11 is claimed. In the meantime, we rewrite the pricing server and the trading system to have an active handshake during discovery so that we're not wasting bandwidth and time, both of which are at a premium in black box trading. During that time, the klaxon only goes off once and the mysterious problem goes away. Two weeks later, we've got all the pieces ready to go into production, but the problem's not recurring and deployments are labor intestive (this is before CI/CD.) We have a meeting in the main IT room so we can include IT without leaving the network unmonitored. After about an hour, we're going around in circles with no one wanting to take responsibility for a decision to deploy or not to deploy the new code. One of the sysadmins gets a call on his cell phone, answers it briefly, then plugs it into a USB port on his desktop. The klaxons go off. Sysops jump to see what's going on. The developers all sit where they are and stare at sysadmin's phone. After a few minutes of sysop speak trying to diagnose what caused the IP address to be claimed, my managing director says. "Jerry, unplug your phone for a second." He does and 10.10.16.11 vanishes off the network. When the smoke clears, we've discovered that the IP theft isn't intellectual property. It's Internet Protocol. Whenever Jerry plugs his phone into a USB port, it claims an IP address. He usually plugs it into a charger on the other side of the room that's not connected to a PC or doesn't plug it in until after the pricing servers have started up for the day. It's only when he plugs it in before or during the pricing server startup sequence that the trading systems discover it, think it's a pricing server, and try to send it market data. We wound up not needing to install the modified server code, but the IT room does get some huge signs that read, "Do not plug any devices into sysadmin PCs via USB." [link] [comments]  |
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