TFTS Top Tales - May 2020 Tech Support |
- TFTS Top Tales - May 2020
- What is going on here?
- The Human Machine
- 2 hour helpdesk calls and you
- Phat Al and friends
- Classic Pebcak
| Posted: 02 Jun 2020 09:10 PM PDT Hi Everybody! Here's another month of Top Tales for you to enjoy - thanks to everyone for posting & commenting! Also for all of your hard work keeping the internets piping hot during this tough time. Remember to tell a friend about TFTS! ~ magicB ~ TFTS TOP TALES - May 20205/1/20 : [s] I thought everything is online now? by i_need_more-coffee 5/2/20 : [m] But I want my monitor... by RockyMoose 5/3/20 : [s] Well, it's not there. by thewileyone 5/4/20 : [s] Oh... hang on... by Darodar 5/5/20 : [s] This all seems very complicated... by rentacle 5/6/20 : [s] Oh, I didn't use that. by keigo199013 5/7/20 : [s] Google can do that? by LenryNmQ 5/8/20 : [m] I'm hearing sounds. by beyondatrekkiegirl 5/9/20 : [m] That's not good enough! by goatwomble 5/10/20 : [s] That doesn't matter! by Serpardum 5/11/20 : [s] Oh sure that would be fine. by combiningvariousitem 5/12/20 : [s] What's the ticket number? by TheRubiksDude 5/13/20 : [m] She doesn't want to talk to you. by knifeislife17 5/14/20 : [s] UGH hang on... by Awkw4rdTravesty 5/15/20 : [m] Will I need to do that, or can you? by kapnbanjo 5/16/20 : [s] I know what you are going to tell me... by TheSkrippy 5/17/20 : [s] Could that be it? by PG478 5/18/20 : [s] Okay so it looks like a black box... by clee-saan 5/19/20 : [m] Oh, yes. Did you fix it? by devdevo1919 5/20/20 : [s] You want me to do what? by I_smell_insanity 5/21/20 : [m] Yeah, I think that's me. by goatwomble 5/22/20 : [s] But we pay you. by revan225 5/23/20 : [m] This is so hard, isn't there an easier way? by RasT110e5 5/24/20 : [m] FINE. But this is not over! by NoAlien 5/25/20 : [l] How did you even get a job in here? by pave42 5/26/20 : [l] You are dealing with me here! by ImperatorPeppino 5/27/20 : [l] I'll be in my office if you need me. by i_can_has_interwebs 5/28/20 : [s] Uhh, are you sure? by Voyagerlol 5/29/20 : [s] Now what? by unsower 5/30/20 : [l] What do you mean!? by FIRAPHEX 5/31/20 : [s] Wait, do you mean like just the letter? by samwichse The full set of TFTS Top Tales by month can be found in our wiki. All stories and quotes are copyright their original authors. No re-use without permission. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2020 10:29 AM PDT So this happened a few hours ago. I was taking a call from a lady who was having issues connecting to the company's VPN. Me: this is the IT service desk Lady: Hi I'm having trouble connecting to the VPN. It's not accepting my password. Me: ok I'll check on that and see why it's not accepting your password It was at time that we suddenly got flooded with calls from people. I thought that maybe something had just broken. I also usually mute my phone so I don't have to talk to them while I'm working but this time I forgot to. Me: what is going on here?!! I was slightly freaked out at the time about seeing our lines being flooded. The lady on the phone heard me. Lady: I have no idea! That's why I called you! I had to explain to the lady that I was looking at an unrelated issue. It was an awkward moment. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2020 12:26 PM PDT The recent story about Phat Al made me remember a funny name story from my own workplace, a couple of years ago. I was told the story by my colleague over a few beers, so there is some creative freedom in it. Now, my colleague works in our network department, and at this point was fairly newly transferred from our 1st line operations into the network team, meaning he was the "newbie", tasked with all the minor issues as learning experiences. One day, he noticed something weird in our network logs, a reference to a fax machine kept popping up. We haven't even had physical phone lines for at least 5 years at this point (we all use cell-phones under a common business subscription), let alone any fax lines. So, he started digging through the logs, tracing the traffic, finally pinpointing it to a specific switch, serving a specific office area. He heads down there, looking around, but can't find anything resembling a fax machine. Finally he asks the people working in that area if they "know about a fax here?", the answer? "Yeah, HE is sitting right over there". Turns out, it was a relatively new user, who's initials spelled out "f.a.k.s" (the local word for fax), and he'd gotten that as his company username. TLDR: Network technician searches for a fax machine, finds a human fax [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2020 05:21 PM PDT I promise there's not a word of lie here other than my usual dramatic writing style. Had a 2 hour call this morning (around 7:20-9:30AM) because we sent most of our cube jockeys home and while we provided what laptops we had to users most people are using their home machines. This puts the helpdesk in a position where we have to support people's *shudder* personal machines. This laptop was old. Like, Methuselah if measured in computer years old. Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM, Windows 7, and didn't look to have been reimaged since 2009-ish just to go by the software install and file modified dates. Now, anyone who checks into my post history knows I am a retro computing fanboy. I reburbed an Amiga 600 and a Tandy 1000 just this year. But let's be clear, 11 years old is too old for daily use unless you work for the IRS. Her reported issue was that Citrix was connecting, then closing abruptly. Sounded like something was timing out. Mostly blaming her ancient system and likely usage habits I fired up our semi trusty remote access tool and was amazed when it successfully connected - after four minutes. Compounding the issue was the fact that this woman was a hoarder. Not of newspapers, knickknacks or medical prostheses, but of software. She claimed she still needed H&R Block tax software from 2009. She was now on Comcast but insisted that she needed her old Verizon In-Home Advisor (known adware and resource hog, I removed it surreptitiously while she was yelling at her dogs). Final tally of issues: 5 browser toolbars, 3 different security suites running AT THE SAME TIME, numerous "coupon" apps, desktop completely overrun with icons (moved a screenful into a folder, hit arrange, another full screen - 5 times), 170GB of photos I had to offload to make enough room to update Citrix from version 4.6, a 150GB Norton 360 BACKUP - ON THE SAME DRIVE - of said photos, etc. To be fair, after 11 years of use by what could be generously be called a novice is blunt testament to how solid Windows 7 was. It's genuinely impressive that it ran as well as it did, which is to say it was running at all. Aftercare included a quick rundown on why coupon apps are always - without exception - adware, how you only need one security suite, backing up isn't very useful if you put it on the same device, and that the IRS can't really come after you after 3 years unless you're rich or a corporation. Recommended a decent cheap laptop if she chose to upgrade as well, and instructed her to contact her boss to request a work laptop as well since she wouldn't have admin on that one. Highlights include having to mute myself in order to answer nature's call since she refused to let me work unsupervised, dogs constantly barking in the background, and constantly having to explain what I was doing because this was her laptop so she had to know what was happening to it. I don't have an issue with keeping an eye on the guy working on your machine, but this lady didn't know the difference between deleting an icon and uninstalling a program. Took a longer break than usual after that, total brain fry for about 20 minutes before I could successfully rub two neurons together. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 02 Jun 2020 06:57 AM PDT This is from the early 80s, two really short stories from the days of Digital VAX/VMS systems. First, we had a support call from a user asking who Phat Al was and why did he keep saying 'error' (he was a Texan working in Australia). What the? After some discussion we eventually decoded what he was talking about ... he was referring to a FAT-AL (FATAL) error message on his terminal. Facepalm! --- Secondly, another user was complaining that his program was taking too long to run. In fact it took around 24 hours to process a stack of data crunching in Fortran. So after working with the user we did some work on his code, and managed to get the runtime down to around 12 hours. Pretty good work! But he was still unhappy. We thought about his problem, and were considering coding keys parts in assembler (Macro-32), but thought we needed to discuss his problem in more detail, after all we have already doubled his performance. It turns out that he just wanted to be able to use his terminal for other work and not wait for the processing to complete. How long it took was not important. So showing him how to created a DCL script, and the SUBMIT command solved the problem, even better we could run this computation at a low CPU priority which was a bonus! Moral of the story... really understand your users needs (requirements) before doing anything! [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 01 Jun 2020 07:33 PM PDT After reading some of these, I created an account just to post this one. I work for an organization where at that time I occupied a help desk position and was acting as the team Coordinator/Supervisor. I was in a leadership team meeting consisting of fellow IT team Coordinators where near the end of the meeting, our Geographical Mapping Systems Coordinator brought up a complaint from one of her team members and advised that she found her team members experience to reflect poorly on our Help Desk; she asked me to follow up on the support her team member had been given. Naturally I ask for specific details, like what problems is she having, how many tickets are we talking here, does she have a list of ticket numbers for these continual issues? Of course, she had no idea and no job numbers, just that her team member had expressed much frustration with IT support. She asked that after I follow up on this I report back to her with how I've resolved her team members problem and how I can implement some strategies so as these problems don't affect our wider staff. I'll note that she was not rude and this was just normal leadership team speak I am familiar with, she was just sure of the fact that it's the help desk's problem; this was also asked of me in-front of the other Coordinators and our Manager, I found this great as it now ropes them into this story and I'm always confident that it's never our Help Desk at fault in these circumstances. Some further back story, we had recently gone through a laptop refresh/roll-out of new hardware, we use SCCM/MECM (maybe SCM back then) for user software deployments which has a software centre application where users can select and install their software. Staff were issued a print out with their new machines, detailing how to access this software centre, it had pretty pictures, including the Windows 7 all programs menu that pointed to the link, staff were also emailed this document and it was available on our intranet website. So, I go and search our ticket system for all requests logged from this user and I find two jobs, one closed days prior. The closed job was in the line of "user advised missing application X, directed to software centre to install it". The open job was an incident logged the afternoon before, where she was complaining that she is missing all of her applications including MS Office and she is unable to perform her role; she was on someone else's machine, under their logon, as a workaround (this is also a no no). Now I know this one's going to be great as Office is part of the OS build, it can't not be there and I've already an idea of what's going on and I'm sure you reading also share this; I call the user, who was quite frustrated and voiced her complaint to me that she is unable to perform her role and this whole roll-out has caused her significant delays. I go and see the user...... She proceeds to start up her machine, log in and go "see" then look at me; I'm holding back a smile here as my suspicions are further reinforced . I play along and say sorry, i'm not seeing any issue; she just gives me this look like am I stupid or something and then lets out this sigh and says "I don't have any applications.." in this condescending tone. I continue to play as this is just freaking great, I'm a bundle of joy right now and I'm containing my excitement, I continue to be stoic and ask her what applications is she missing... again, the look, she says well everything (in a 'duh' tone) except that application X I had the help desk install for me, like, where's my email and word! I ask to grab her mouse, I then proceed to show her the start - all programs menu where Office and everything else she's supposedly missing is right there; she looks dumbfounded, just dumbfounded, then a comeback sparks in her pea brain and she gets all snoody and asks why aren't they on her computer! I say, your desktop? I then show her how to create a shortcut and again, she's dumbfounded; now shit, she still has this attitude like it's IT at fault and states, well why were they not there in the first place! I explain that many users don't want their desktop cluttered and in-fact, we purposely do not create shortcuts as part of deployments for this reason, it's just basic computer skills for staff to create their own shortcuts. I also went and pointed out the software centre printout, the email and the intranet article detailing how to re-install her software, I made a point of drawing out the conversation explaining what a shortcut is, where it points to (C:\program files etc); She gave no quarter, she just makes some half-asred sigh type noises and accepts it, but both her and I know that she just realized she was being stupid and rude. I then rubbed further salt into the wound by saying her using another users machine while under that other users logon is in breach of the organizations security and privacy policies as noted during employee induction; that one broke home, I could see she had accepted defeat. I finish this all up with a management style email (as she requested) to the Coordinator and with a CC to everyone in that meeting detailing exactly the problem; that we had exactly two jobs logged by the user, that she failed to check the three sources of documentation for her software installs, and that it was a lack of elementary user computer skills where I had provided coaching in how to create a desktop shortcut; furthermore, her using another users machine was in-breach of organizational security and privacy policies. My 'strategy' for moving forward was that the user required some basic computer training courses and requires to respect organizational policy. I also went and had a personal conversation with her Coordinator, who did apologizes, but I discussed how I found it amazing that this High School and University graduate had come to never understand how to or require to create a shortcut or use the 'all programs' menu, I mean this user operates mapping system applications! I didn't ask, but i suspect she was primarily a Mac user. In the following days each of the Coordinators and Manager came to me and advised it was a great laugh. So yeah, classic pebkac. [link] [comments]  |
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