Reference to old school tech solution goes over head of younger network tech Tech Support |
- Reference to old school tech solution goes over head of younger network tech
- "It's where you would put the hat!"
- A whole production site down, for a simple error
- Phone goes straight to voicemail (it doesn't.)
- User is trying really hard to be relevant in front of the boss
- I'm sure it's in here somewhere...
| Reference to old school tech solution goes over head of younger network tech Posted: 28 Aug 2020 07:25 AM PDT So this is my first ever post on Reddit. Been reading here for quite a while, but finally have an experience worth sharing. So I work for a rather large organization in network operations. I am fairly new to the network side of things, but have almost 20 years IT experience. I was at my desk making notes on some of the network tickets in my queue when I receive a call from one of our buildings saying they had no network connectivity in the whole building. I am unable to ping or SSH the switch. Check the distribution router. It showed the connection was down. I headed out to the building and checked the switch. Logged in. Tried a few things (restart the connection to the distro, restart the whole switch, reseated the fiber, reseated the GBIC). None of that solved the connection problem. Sent a text to the boss to check what else I was missing and to check the fiber path. She texted back that sometimes the GBIC are like a troublesome Nintendo cartridge and that she would check the path. The younger guy (mid 20s) that I had with me looked at me confused and said he didn't understand what she meant by the Nintendo cartridge reference. I explained. We went to the distro router, I pulled the GBIC on the fiber that went to that building blew on it. Reseated it and the fiber and the glorious connection light came on for that interface. Logged into the distro and it showed the connection was up. Checked with the users at the building and they were all good. When I got back to the office I told the boss (closer to my age) about the confusion with my coworker. We had a good laugh. [link] [comments]  |
| "It's where you would put the hat!" Posted: 28 Aug 2020 12:54 PM PDT Early 2000s, call center for [Redacted] wireless, billing and support, I have LOTS of stories, but here's one of my favourites: Had a customer call in angry right away (shocking I know) here's how the call went, I am paraphrasing a bit, as this was almost two decades ago: Customer: MY PHONE IS BROKEN Support(Me): Ok, what exactly is broken with it? Customer: What do you mean!? It's broken, are you stupid or something!? Me: Well, broken can mean a lot of things, can you please explain what YOU mean by broken? Customer: The screen is dead! It doesn't even make a sound when I try to call people! Me: Oh, see? This is why I ask what YOU mean by broken....A sound!? Like a dial tone? Cell phones don't have a dial-tone like home phones. Is it on? Is it charged? Customer: I don't know what that means Me: You've plugged it in? Customer: I just got it, and the screen doesn't even work! AND I can't call anyone! This thing is useless! Me: Okay, so it might not be charged, have you tried the power button? Customer: I don't know what you mean, what power button!? Me: Well, with cell phones, you need to turn them on, and they have batteries, so after a while the battery needs to be charged again. Customer: So, what do I do!? Me: Just press and hold the power button, it's on the top of the phone. Customer (responding right away): Nothing happened Me: You need to hold the power button for a few seconds for it to turn on Customer (responding right away): Nothing happened Me: I don't think you're pressing it for long enough, press and hold the top of the phone for at least 3 LONG seconds Customer: OK, What do you mean by 'the top'? Me (confused): Like...um...The top...? Not the front... or the sides... or the bottom... or the back... but the top... Customer: It doesn't work! Me: And you're pressing the top...? Customer: I don't know! At this point I tried everything I could think of to try to explain what "Top" means, after about 5 minutes, of mind-numbing banter I can't remember I tried this: Me: Okay so... Put your finger on the screen... Customer: yeah... Me: Slide it UP! When you hit an edge, that's the top Customer: Nothing happened Me: Maybe we should go back to the store and see if something is broken, or if the people there can see what's wrong with the phone. Customer: I CAN'T DO THAT I had one last idea to try to get her to understand what top meant: Me (Sad for humanity and tired): Okay... So... Look at your phone... Customer (not angry now, just more embarrassed): okay... Me: Your phone isn't a phone anymore, pretend it's a person, the screen is it's face... Customer: okay, I can see that.... Me: OKAY, so the top is Where you would put the hat! Customer: OH! IT'S WHERE YOU WOULD PUT THE HAT! a few second later, I hear the phone's "booting sound" Customer: Okay, Okay, I got it! Me: Thanks for choosing [Redacted] wireless... [link] [comments]  |
| A whole production site down, for a simple error Posted: 29 Aug 2020 03:32 AM PDT I work IT support for an optician based in Paris, France. They have stores all over France and in a few other countries. They also have a subsidiary with a production site some distance away, still in Paris. This site is comprised of two buildings - relevant later. August is an "off-month" for the whole company. Most activities go down, more than half the personnel is on vacation. Including the entire personnel of one building in the distant site, meaning that building is closed off. Of course, that's when the troubles begin. We get a warning that the internet went down on the production site. Worse, the network materiel that we need to check is in the closed-off building. And, of course, the most mobile tech of the team is yours truly, because I'm on a bicycle, everybody else depends on public transportation. Going there takes me 25-30 minutes, by 38-40°C (Approx 96 F). Also I wear dark trousers because of the dress code. I grab the keys of the closed-off building, only to find that it does open the metal curtain but not the main door. After searching a bit, the only option is to go back to the main site to find the other key. Another 25 minutes in scorching heat. Turns out the guy who handed me the key thought he had four identical keys. Wrong, he had two sets of two different keys, and only gave me one. I gulp down a half liter of water and stash another in my bag - courtesy of the company. Back to the production site I go. Again, 25 minutes of rather intense pedaling under the merciless sun of early August. Of course, opening the main door and the metal curtain did NOT end my troubles. The alarm was on, and the guy who administrated the alarm in most situations could not - it can be remotely administrated, but only when the internet works, which, of course, is the one thing that had gone down. He finally gives me a code that will get me in. Of course the damn thing is super-sensitive and if you take five more seconds than needed you get your ears blasted. Ah, well. It only lasted less than a second. Finally able to get to work, I do the usual IT check ups. Power everything down, wait a bit, power it back up, so on. Nothing budges. I do note that the modem is stuck at a step in its power up sequence. I take note of everything, then back to the main site. Once there, I tasked one of my colleagues with contacting the internet service provider to see what was wrong, since that error code was for them. I, for my part, was done with my day and quite happy to be rid of that garbage for the day. I'd spent my whole afternoon either on my bicycle or waiting for stuff to happen, with little AC anywhere. A couple hours after I got home, my colleague told me he'd found the crux of the matter : The contract with the ISP had not been renewed, and of course the service had been cut. Even better : the service would take up to a week to be back up. It was a vital part of the still active production team's work, and it was completely inoperable. TL, DR : A whole production site went down because someone had forgotten to renew the ISP's contract. Also forced me to do a lot of bicycling in August heat. [link] [comments]  |
| Phone goes straight to voicemail (it doesn't.) Posted: 28 Aug 2020 12:57 PM PDT Sorry if there's any formatting issues, this is the first time I've done a big written post on Reddit. Background: So I work at a small business MSP and we service about 7-8 Clients and I'm the only tech in charge of all of these clients, so I'm essentially managing 7 business daily while hoping none of them explodes on me. One of my Clients (A Doctor's Office) calls me today stating that their phone system is not working properly, and that all calls are being routed to voicemail immediately. Lovely people in story:
So I had gone to their office this morning to supervise on an ISP transition and make sure everything went through fine. $FD Tells me in passing that she's not receiving any calls. Our first conversation went a little like this:
At which point I decide to call all 3 of their numbers (They have 3 numbers that all route to the same system) and I'm greeting with their Auto-Attendant system
I dial 1 & the phone rings and the call goes through (on all 3 numbers btw), so I tell her it's operating fine. I get back to the office and I get yet another call from her, telling me the phone system isn't working again. At this point it's almost 2pm and I'm eating a Pizza for lunch, so I give here about 10m before I start taking a deeper look at it. So I do the exact same thing I did earlier in the morning, Dialed all 3 numbers, pressed 1, and the call went through. Told the other receptionist that picked up the call that it's working fine and she can let $FD know that it's working fine. I get ANOTHER CALL at 3pm from her, Irate, telling me that the phone system is STILL giving her issues. This time I have her call from her cellphone so I can hear this exact issue that she's having.
At this point I'm getting extremely infuriated so I decide to just make it so all numbers just immediately dial the front desk, with 0 impunity. I then give her a call to verify functionality.
I hate this job. TL;DR: Client tells me phone system goes to voicemail, It's actually the machine directory. Client then tells me that was never setup on their system, forcing me to disable it. [link] [comments]  |
| User is trying really hard to be relevant in front of the boss Posted: 28 Aug 2020 08:57 AM PDT So we're releasing an internal tool for sales and the IT director sent a mass email to various people with access so they can test it before we do the final release. Included in this mail was the founder/ceo, other dept directors as well as all sales managers and some top executives. On that email the CEO Replied All reminding everyone that to test the tool and send us any feedback bugs suggestions etc. even the minor ones so they're fixed before everyone starts using it. This morning I received in the same Reply to All chain a series of some blowhards just replying "Ok" and "I'm aware", and one small bug one exec sent about a link being wrong, but everyone hitting Reply All so the CEO, directors, managers, all the IT team, etc. gets copied I fix the bug and anounce it, along with one Reply All of my own reminding everyone to not send individual bugs to the Reply All chain, instead using the regular ticketing system we have for these matters. I immediately receive a new ticket notification, like 5 minutes after, of someone else just forwarded the original email about the link being wrong to the ticketing email creating a new ticket OF THE VERY SAME TICKET I ANNOUNCED WAS ALREADY FIXED with a FYI note. I'm like, dude it's me. Not only I'm failing to figure out the thinking process this guy went to in thinking he's actually doing something of value instead of just creating extra work for someone else (creating a ticket for a bug that's already fixed and he knows this) but the guy that created the ticket was not even the original person who reported it. [link] [comments]  |
| I'm sure it's in here somewhere... Posted: 28 Aug 2020 08:19 AM PDT A story from my time in tech retail at a cellular dealership. A customer was in wanting to make some changes to her account. The kinds of changes she wanted to make required verifying her identity, so I asked for some ID. Customer: Oh yes, I should have that here somewhere! And she began a pocket dump. But this was no ordinary pocket dump. You see, it was summertime, she was rather well-endowed, and was wearing a low-cut top. I don't know if this is common in larger centers, but in our small town (less than 2000 people) it's very normal for women to carry things like cell phones and smaller items tucked underneath their bra straps. It's so common that it's completely normalized, and really treated no different than someone pulling something from their pocket. But in this case it was more than just a phone under a bra strap. You know how there's always that guy who only wears cargo pants and carries all manner of EDC gear in the pockets everywhere he goes? Or that experienced mother-of-four with a bottomless handbag full of child-rearing equipment? It was like that, but she carried it all inside her bra. First her phone, then a pack of gum, then lipchap, a notepad, a pen, a second pen, another pack of gum, her husband's phone, a small wallet, a changebag, a small utility knife...and it just kept going. After the first three or four items she decided it would be easier to rest her chest on the counter and tilt forward, attempting to dump everything out, or at least make it easier to pull things out. Then it seemed that some items had fallen down underneath, so she had to plunge her hands in and root around to dig everything else out. All with me looking on, trying to keep my customer service face in place. Finally she managed to find her driver's license buried somewhere in a corner. I thanked her for the trouble, verified her ID, and made the requested changes to her account while she loaded everything back into her improvised equipment carrier. [link] [comments]  |
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