End user wiping and reimagining his own computer. Tech Support |
- End user wiping and reimagining his own computer.
- “Can you show me what that is I’ve never done that before.”
- If only you’d listen
- Its Christmas and I am off the clock.
- Technology is Magic. Told in Two Tales.
| End user wiping and reimagining his own computer. Posted: 28 Dec 2020 09:10 PM PST We are migrating to exchange online at my new job. I've only been here for a couple of months but I have been getting into the routine of how to help users deal with the switch in this companies environment. I was helping an older user get email back working on her phone and was having trouble getting her to reboot her phone so I reached out to local support in her office. We started tag teaming the problem and he asked me to call another user who had been blowing up his phone while we were helping this lady. We were almost done with her so I let him finish up while I called the other user. It was another older user who was having trouble with his laptop and decided to reboot, he said some screen came up while his computer was rebooting and he hit enter the another screen came up that said "SCCM" and now "a bunch of horizontal bars are moving across the screen" and I thought to myself "he couldn't have, he would have had to click and hit enter way too many times for him to make it all the way through the imaging process for that to happen". I messaged the local support guy and told him "I think user B is fucked I need you to confirm what the hell he did to his computer right now" he ran over to the users office and I hear him say "you re-imaged your computer, we are going to have to setup it up for you again" and the user said "what about my files I had important files on this laptop" and local support said "any files stored on the network are still there" the user "what about the files on the hard drive?" Local support "they are all gone, I will get started loading all of your apps back on your computer" local support left and I was still on the phone and the end user said "I hate this fucking system" and hung up. I was completely shocked that someone could make it all the way through the imaging process blindly clicking shit without saying "something is not right here maybe I should call the support desk" [link] [comments]  |
| “Can you show me what that is I’ve never done that before.” Posted: 28 Dec 2020 06:01 AM PST This happened probably about 6 months ago at my tier 1 tech support job for a financial firm, but I thought about it recently and wanted to share. I answered the phone for my team's support line, and a very sweet, elderly, woman called in for some assistance. Her issue she was having was actually very common and a simple fix, our web app we use for internal compliance training only works in Chrome and she was trying to use IE, but what happened during our conversation astounded me. M = Me, L = Lady. M: Ok ma'am I see the problem, our training site will actually only work in Google Chrome, so you just need to copy+paste the training link into your Chrome browser. L: I'm sorry, can you show me what that is I've never done that before? M, thinking she meant never used Chrome: Oh sure thing, Google Chrome is an alternate web-browser that's installed on all of our- L: Oh no, I know about the Google Chrome. I mean a copy+paste. I've never done one of those before. She had no idea what I was talking about. I've ran into technologically illiterate users, but this was on another level. This woman has worked at our company in her position for 8 years, and I don't know how long she's been in the financial industry for total, but her position is high enough that it requires many years of previous experience to even get in the first place. She has gone all that time, never using copy+paste. A big part of her job is to take massive amounts of data from million+ line spreadsheets and compile it into digestible reports for our Directors. She's been doing that for 8 YEARS without copying and pasting anything. I went to show her how to do it using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V and she said that was too difficult, so I had to show her how to highlight, right-click and copy, and then right-click and paste in the spot you want it to go. L: OH WOW, that is super helpful! I will save so much time with this trick, thank you young man! But how much time has she already wasted... [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 28 Dec 2020 12:22 PM PST Warning: long Ages ago I managed a tech support team at a rather large multinational corporation. Our team specifically supported data backup and recovery and when you back up over 15 petabytes every 24 hours AND there were strict rules that only us or 3 specific directors could make any changes we were busy! There were also very strict rules. Here are a few of them: No backup could ever have a retention over 35 days without the team doing it buying the storage needed for the data AND buying the backup software license AND managing it themselves. Restores were ONLY to restore lost data to the original device or its replacement. Migration was a team that charged your P&L center. DBAs HAD to dump to flat files and those were backed up as regular data. But DBAs could restore their own data. Strict. If someone broke the rules, FIRED! If we knew and didn't fix it, FIRED! So strict that if someone asked us to break the rules we had to report them to Audit. The lead in: One morning I'm looking at data reports and something is really goofy - a DBA had restored data that was 5 months old. I dive into the system and there it is. We had a consistent name pattern for policies, schedules, etc. so (fake name) FiveWeekRetention was the default. Someone had edited the local file by hand for SixMonthRetention - legit because a few teams were paying for that. Some DBA had just gone fishing for a policy name and got lucky. I edited the file, locked it to require admin login, deleted the too old backups, and waited. Barely 3 hours later a DBA manager logged in and changed it back. I sent logs to Audit and he was fired in 2 days, replaced by a guy I will call Bob. Side note: real hardcore nerdshit warning! We did weekly fulls and daily incrementals so to get data that was 35 days old we kept 42 days of data. To get six months we'd keep 187 days. The name of the schedule had nothing to do with the period of the schedule. The saga of Bob: Bib is in place 3 days when he calls. One of my best guys, Mad Dog, escalates him to me so I call him. Bob: 'Jeez, you guys are morons.' Me: (hang up) Bob after calling back: 'I'm just trying to point out you suck at your job. You're only keeping data for 5 weeks, you gotta' keep it for 6.' Me: 'We know that, Bob, everything's fine.' Bob: 'But the schedule clearly says 'five week retention'. Here, let me explain to you how backups really work, because you obviously don't know your job...' [note: I had this job because I had been working with the software for 20 years and had been head of technical support for the software manufacturer for 3 years. I literally wrote the support manual] I let him drone on as I worked, he finally stopped after 20 minutes with, "So now that you understand how to actually do your job, fix it or else." Me: "sure" I closed the ticket with a 'no problem found' code, charging his department for wasted time. Then I emailed him edited screenshots of the policy showing a 42 day retention. Next morning I am talking to the head of all support (a director) on the daily call and he mentions Bob emailing him about how my team was full of idiots that can't do math. I explain to him how restores work and how the schedule that keeps data for 42 days is just called FiveWeekRetention to reflect policy. I even type it up and email it to him with the policy screenshot and he forwards it to Bob and Bob's boss. NEXT morning the director says Bob escalated to the VP of division ops. So we get that guy on the phone, email him the explanation I typed up, the VP curses the open door policy, tells Bob's manager to control his guy, we re-send the entire explanation and screenshot to Bob again. Bob calls me, Bob: "Hate to get you in trouble, but I had to escalate because you're putting data at risk." Me: "Bob, listen very carefully. We keep data for 42 days, we just name the schedule to reflect policy." Bob: "Do you think I'm an idiot? Last warning to fix it." Ticket closed 'no problem found'. Resend the email to him and his boss AGAIN. Skip a week and I'm thinking it's over when I get a call. Bob has actually used the whistleblower system with HR and has claimed gross incompetence is threatening the company with massive data loss that could cost millions and that the open door policy is being ignored. We must, MUST, explain to the CIO what is going on. The 'sits on the board of a Fortune 25 company' CIO. The VP forwards my email, we have a massive con call with the CIO and I walk him through it all, sharing my screen as I login and show how the retention is correct and how the name could be FiveSecondRetention and it would still actually keep the data 42 days. CIO: 'And you showed him this?' Me: 'Yes, three times.' CIO: 'OK, add him and try again.' Bob joins and immediately says, "Since there are many non-technical people on the call let me explain how backup retention works..." And launches into his 20 lecture. The director had to mute him after repeatedly trying to get his attention and text him to get him to shut up. This really three of the director who didn't do the usual introductions. But he shut up. Then, CIO: 'Good, let's go ahead. After careful review it is obvious that company policies are being followed and there is no risk of data loss, so...' Bob, interrupting: 'This is why I wanted to educate you on how backups work. You have to know that and have a good grasp of math to understand backups and since you obviously don't understand the math you should probably let the technical people talk now.' Me: .... My boss: ...... The director: ........... Bob's boss:.................... The CIO: 'Dave (not his name), you're Bob's manager, right?' Dave: 'Yes'. CIO: 'You got that email support sent, right?' Dave: 'Uh, yes. Two times, I think.' CIO: 'Dave, you and Bob are fired. Security is already on their way. This call is over.' Me and my boss, alone on the bridge, 'BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!!!' tl;dr; moron refused to listen to support, got fired for calling the CIO dumb [link] [comments]  |
| Its Christmas and I am off the clock. Posted: 29 Dec 2020 02:28 AM PST Short one. Christmas day I was enjoying a nice game of nearly glitch free cyberpunk on PC when my work phone rang. Its ring told me it was a direct call so I ignored it. Then they called again. Then again. Finally on the 4th time I picked up.
She finished that then said.
I hang up. Texted CIO.
He texted back.
My phone rang once more and I logged out of it. No repercussions came today and I got a nice apology email which I will paraphrase below.
CIO contacted me today.
[link] [comments]  |
| Technology is Magic. Told in Two Tales. Posted: 28 Dec 2020 01:36 PM PST So I worked as frontline it support for several years while going to school online. I finished my Bachelor's degree early this year and my boss is the dept head for the IT team of two large industrial plants. He knew me and liked me and my work ethic so when a promotion opened up at the other plant I was pretty much assured the position. The other plant is much smaller and much of the team works at my old plant, only going to the small plant when required, so much of the time I am the only IT person on site where I act as pretty much a network admin. I say pretty much because as the only person on site, I am often the first call on any IT issue. As an aside. These are industrial plants in small towns in the south. Not the most advanced of communities when it comes to tech. Also, I am doing this from my phone so apologies for any mistakes. Below are two stories of my short experience in this new position. Story 1 - Well now THIS app won't work. During the pandemic our company instituted a screening procedure for anyone coming into the plant. Temp is taken and you are asked several questions by a screener. As a salaried employee it is expected of me to 'volunteer' for one or two screening shifts a month. My first ever time doing it, I was paired with another employee that wasn't known for being a people person. We'll call him 'Bob'. Goes alright for a little bit but between people coming in Bob notices his Facebook app on his phone won't work. He immediately asks me what's wrong. I have troubleshot systems for much of my adult life as a career. First thing to do, rule out the easy stuff. I see his phone is on the plant wifi (much of the plant gets poor service due to the thick walls lots of metal, like a big ol' Faraday cage. So we connect to wifi) so I ask him to see if it's just the wifi, we are at the front door so it should get signal. "Don't you think I tried that!?" He grumbles loudly. I'm standing (while social distancing) close enough and he most certainly didn't try but whatever. I pull out my phone and mine is working fine and is connected to wifi. So this tells me it's either something to do with his phone or his account that lets him connect to the company wifi. Both of which I have zero control over. I don't work with the service desk to control accounts and I don't work at Apple. He gets annoyed with me. But again whatever. The best part is every few minutes he checks a different app and the following interaction occurs ad nauseum. Bob - "Well now [insert app name] isn't working!" Me - "Well it seems your internet connection isn't working so that app probably won't work" Bob - "Well isn't there anything your useless dept can do?" Me - "If you tried to connect off of the wifi then it is likely your phone. I don't work at Apple." About 18 times we had this conversation. Turns out... Apple released an update that our firewall didn't like and you just had to go back in and re-authenticate the device for the wifi to work again. He tried it using mobile data though right? Story 2 - Well we just need a smarter IT dept! This situation has been going on for about a month, finally resolved about a week ago. There is a woman that works in our HR Dept who will be retiring soon. As she is training her replacement I get a call from a friend saying she needs help getting her replacement access to a database she uses for posting jobs for people to apply to the company. Just a database where she stores all the job info. My friend, not in IT, showed her how to put the database shortcut on the replacement's (rep for short) laptop but it wouldn't let her in. Not a hard call I think but I'll go down and talk to her and make sure that's the case (gotta be wary of taking people's word. Especially when it comes to confidential company databases). I go and talk to them, HR explains the situation again, everything looks in order, so I add the rep to the database's approved users list and ask her to try again. Nothing. No access. Odd I think? So I do some investigation and then realize something. As explained above, this smaller plant and my old plant share a great deal of resources. This includes the HR Dept. This causes confusion a lot and I realize some of this is stupid but I'm new so I can't fix it all. HR had used to work at the other plant and just kept using their HR database instead of our plants when she moved. So I give her the options. She can use our site's database... HR - "I'm not doing that! I have 25 years of work on that database. Just give her access to that one." Me - "I understand the inconvenience but that isn't our database. I have no control over it as I am at this site not that one..." We go back and forth and finally I cut in with the other option. Me - "Honestly, I don't care one way or the other which one you use. If you want Rep to have access, you'll have to contact X at the other plant and he'll get you access." I leave and a few days later I get a message asking if I have gotten Rep access yet. I go through again that I can't. Again a few days later. And a few days after that. For weeks. Explaining again every time that. I. CANT. Finally I say screw it, give me Rep's employee ID (what X will need it to give her access and I don't remember it at this point.) I'll just contact him to get her to leave me alone. Nothing back. A few days later, another message asking if I have gotten her access... At this point I'm trying not to lose it. I just take some screenshots to cover myself and begin ignoring her. You can take a horse to water and all that. Fast forward a few weeks and apparently she finally contacted the other plant. My friend calls me up one day laughing saying he caught her telling everyone that "We just need a smarter IT dept. I don't think they know what they are doing." That was earlier today. I am a little angry. TLDR - Technology is magic and my new co-workers have no idea how it works. [link] [comments]  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from Tales From Tech Support. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States | |
No comments:
Post a Comment