Made 'IT Manager' look bad in job interview, by mistake Tech Support |
- Made 'IT Manager' look bad in job interview, by mistake
- The Office 'IT Expert' interrupts our IT Meeting 3 times until I look at her computer
- The 40 year bug fix
- Office bully tries to out-logic me!
- 7.5 hours of work in 11 minutes
- Always remember to shutdown switch ports connected to extra/empty rj45 wall jacks...
- Voice-activated Scanner - Or is it?
- Black Metal Guy
- I don't want to be Tech Support: Overheating Appliance
- Why'd you remove email access for my dead father?
- What Do You Mean "Computer"?
- Tales from Field Support VI
- Please don't close your computer...
- My password is a hypertext protocol
- Machine of Horrors
- It's gone to the toasters
- Help me learn to send an email
- It doesn’t work because of bugs!
| Made 'IT Manager' look bad in job interview, by mistake Posted: 29 Jan 2021 02:26 PM PST I was in an interview at a small local meat-processing plant, for a job as an IT Tech. I would be reporting to the IT Manager (their only IT guy) , who was sitting in on the interview being conducted by the Accountant. I was confident I could easily do the job, since it was simply a bunch of networked PC's throughout the plant. Stuff like PC stations at various points along the processing line, to scan/enter progress of the meat at various points of the processing. Since my answers to their questions are all very satisfactory, the Manager asks me, in the case of a computer going down (e.g dead hard drive), how I would go about fixing it quickly to make sure the processing line is not down any longer than necessary. (Apparently, due to regulations, the meat can't proceed to the next station until it is scanned at that station...or something like that....and the whole line will be halted in the interim) I suggested that I would simply keep a couple of spare PC's on standby with the software installed, and ready to go, so that you can easily swap it out with the faulty one and get the line back operational in 2mins. Then take the faulty one away and fix it at your leisure. Now, this is not exactly genius stuff, but the look on the Accountant's face was one of amazement. He sat there with his mouth open, then after a few seconds he glances at the IT Manager, who looked at him with embarrassment, then he turned back to his notes and started scribbling furiously LOL - Obviously this as some kind of revelation to them. With a puzzled look on my face, I asked "How do you guys handle that situation at the moment?" - The topic was quickly changed. (I tried my best to suppress a cheeky grin) P.s. I was called back for a second interview, but declined at the time, for many reasons. 1) I'd be reporting to a guy, and getting paid less than a guy, who was less competent than myself, 2) I didn't like the pay or conditions of employment they were offering, which I only found out about in that interview. (I always ask more questions than the interviewer, because I need to know if they are a right fit for me....due diligence) [link] [comments]  |
| The Office 'IT Expert' interrupts our IT Meeting 3 times until I look at her computer Posted: 29 Jan 2021 11:46 PM PST This took place about 20 years ago. I worked in the IT department of a national logistics company in Ireland. One of the office women often boasted about how she knew so much about computers (basically because she knew how to use Microsoft Office) and we humored her, because why bother destroy her confidence, right! As the IT Department, we were having a meeting. It had just started and she interrupted by knocking and coming in. She said she had moved her computer (to clean behind her desk or some other reason) and after plugging everything back in, she could not connect to the network. I told her to check the network cable was plugged in firmly. She insisted that it was - she KNEW THAT! - I said "OK. I will be there in 20mins when we're finished our meeting" She came back in a few mins and interrupted again asking me to come look at it because she had work to do. I told her there was a 90% chance the cable just isn't plugged in but she claimed it definitely was. I said I'd be down soon. A third time, after only a few more minutes, she interrupted again, and the IT Manager said to me "Just go look at the computer for her or we will never get any peace" - I was kinda annoyed she had bugged us until she got her own way, so I went down to the main open-plan office where her computer was. The other 5 or 6 people there knew what was going on. So I asked her, loud enough for everyone to hear, "So you DEFINITELY checked that the network cable is plugged in?" - She replied "Yes! I already told you I did. I'm not stupid!" I glanced at the back of her computer to see the network cable plugged into the back of the computer, then slowly pulled the other end up from behind it, to reveal it had just been sitting on the floor. I held it up in front of her and demonstrated (in the most obviously sarcastic way I could) the action of plugging the cable into the jack on the wall, and then walked off. She was SO angry she started shouting at me as I walked away. She filed a complaint against me to the IT Manager for making her look stupid. I didn't really get in trouble. He just laughed and told me to try be more patient with her. Actually we got along well for the most part, but she annoyed me that day, not waiting for a measly 20mins while we finish our meeting. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 01:29 PM PST Preamble - Y2K horizonBack in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s no one cared about 4-digit years in their computer systems – no one was designing systems with anything like a 30-year life span. And there was not the storage space to waste on such extravagance. However, a tiny percentage of systems did unexpectedly last that long. And, by virtue of being long-lived, they were mainly crucial and little understood by their current carers. And come 1995 or so, they suddenly had to be fixed – this was the Y2K problem that many of you youngsters would have missed (no worries – you have 2038 to look forward to). For those of you who grew up thinking Y2K was a hoax to pay of mortgages for the likes of me: no it wasn't (although it did). It was very real. It did not mean that all computers would fall out of the sky at midnight on Sat 1-Jan-2000. It meant systems needed to be able to handle dates in the 21st century when they first met them. So, for example, a holiday booking system that let you book a year in advance would start misbehaving around 1-Jan-1999. (And that same company's systems that reserved inventory with hotels may have started to fail in 1999). No one, of course should have been that short-sighted with systems design by the 1980s. So my story starts in 1981 – almost 40 years ago to today. 1981 The bug beginsI'm working doing techie IT stuff for a machinery manufacturer - back before it was been called IT -- we was DP (Data Processing) back then. And I'm reviewing some technical proposals for a new system that would handle most of the commercial side of selling machinery, when a sentence caught my eye: "To save development time, we will use YYMMDD date formats rather than the company internal standard" (The internal standard allowed for dates that could go up to 2112 – don't ask why; it made sense at the time). I of course said No. They said this system is only going to be around for five years (International HQ intended us to move to something like SAP). I said Still No…..And was overridden by management. 1998 Karma strikesI'd long since left the company and was honing my skills as a hand-waving suited consultant. The bugged company continued to run and depend on their 1981 systems with the 2-digit years. And, they'd been in denial since around 1996 (when much of the industry woke up to the oncoming Y2K storm) because, well, they planned to migrate to SAP and thus solve all their problems. But by the end of 1998 it was too late to even attempt an SAP migration. They reached out for help, and somehow I got shuffled forward to help project manage one of the world's brinkmanship-est Y2K remediation projects. 1999 Fixing the bugSo for some 120 days in Spring 1999 me and some dozen other people worked sometimes seven days a week to patch up, convert, and thoroughly test their vast aged systems to be Y2K ready. They told us we were their most important project ever – and then seemingly unconsciously sabotaged every step we took. That, I think is a separate post about headless chicken management. They also did not want a long-lasting solution – they were migrating to SAP in the next five years, remember? So we basically implemented a quick and dirty pivot-window system – still had two digit dates, but 26 to 75 would mean 1926 to 1975 while 00 to 25 would mean 2000 to 2025. This was a common approach, with different companies picking different pivot points – it was more common to handle a range more like 1945–2044 or some such. Or a floating pivot so the pivot year updates each calendar year – that would have been a much more costly exercise for them. And, anyway they did not want that. And they did not want us to "waste our time" with dates too far in the future (they did no understand that it was the same amount of work no matter which pivot year we picked). You can probably guess what is coming next….. 2025 LoomsThe 1981 and later systems still run the core of the company. And an SAP migration is still a few years away. And now they are reaching out for some ideas on shifting their date window by another decade or two. The bug continues…. [link] [comments]  |
| Office bully tries to out-logic me! Posted: 30 Jan 2021 12:45 AM PST About 20 years ago. I worked in the IT department of a national logistics company in my country. There were 3 of us Techs and an IT Manager in the IT Department. Ann, Derek, me and Manager. One of the office women (Karen), who liked to bully everyone until she got them to do what she wanted, was covering for the receptionist for the afternoon. Manager, who's office was next door to our IT Office, was out and phone calls were coming in for him, through reception. So acting receptionist Karen called our office and wanted to put his calls through to our phone because Manager was out. I told her to please put them through to his phone so the caller can leave a voicemail for him - simple enough...you'd think! Keep in mind, our phone was for tech support and we were busy looking after several issues. Karen insisted I take Manager's calls, and after a few attempts to explain that we were too busy, I tire of the conversation, tell her I'm too busy for this, and hang up. Ann gasps because she knows Karen a lot longer than me, having worked here for 10years (me only 1), and Ann says that Karen doesn't take no for an answer. She starts by telling me I should do what she says - I tell her she's not my boss, "so No, I don't take orders from the receptionist" - She get more angry, because it's true and her imaginary authority has now been challenged. She then demands I answer my Manager's calls because 'That's your job!!' - I reply "it's not my job."She claims it is because I'm an IT Tech and he is my Manager, and I tell her it's definitely not my job, for several reasons:
Karen got even more angry as our exchange proceeded, and after calling me 'a little imp!' decided to focus on point 3 (Manager never told me to take his calls.) This is where she thought she nailed me. She said "He doesn't NEED to give you permission. He didn't give you permission to use the washroom but you do that don't you!" She then stood there looking really smug like there was no possible reply to her stellar logic. I replied "I don't need his permission for that; It's a basic human right." - Her face went red and with nothing to reply, she stormed out of our office. Ann and Derek just stood there with their mouths open and Ann said "I can't believe it! I've been here 10 years and I've never seen anyone get the better of her like that" Incidentally, when Manager came back and she reported to him that I was refusing to answer his calls, he backed me up by telling her he didn't WANT me answering his calls - "that's why I have voicemail." LOL p.s. I could have reported her to HR for calling me 'a little imp' and Ann said she was shocked that Karen said that...and would be a witness to HR if I decided to report it, but honestly I didn't want to make THAT kind of trouble for her. She'd just got burned..that was sufficient [link] [comments]  |
| 7.5 hours of work in 11 minutes Posted: 29 Jan 2021 05:28 PM PST Happened a couple years ago but I'm unloading and my misery is your joy. For background, I work at a courthouse that until a couple years ago, had two divisions with 3 IT staff covering about 60 employees. Another division was merged in, adding 12 staff who also had 3 IT (never did understand how that was justified). To aid in "integrating" all of us together, the heads of each division decided to hire an IT director, without any input from the current IT staff. They hired someone who had been in IT for a long time, but as it turns out, has almost no real ability to do any of the work. By that I mean he doesn't even know how to change the clock on a windows computer kind of deal. He has told us multiple times that he does not check his email when not at the office. Myself and another member of IT were at a conference and left the Director and our systems admin (my direct supervisor) to handle user issues. On day two of the conference, a user calls me that they are unable to do anything on their machine. No internet, no network access at all. Due to certain network requirements for this user, they had a static IP assigned instead of DHCP like everyone else. Doing some basic troubleshooting by phone, I discovered their network configuration had gotten wiped, so it was a simple fix to reassign the data, but being at a conference, figured I would let the main office deal with it. I referred the issue to the Director and Admin to handle. 7.5 hours later and about 9 emails exchanged of how to fix it, my Director asks if I can call the user back in the morning and try fixing the issue as he was unable to resolve the problem. A problem I explicitly told him how to fix, step by step. So next morning, 8am sharp, I turn to my coworker and tell them to start a timer. I call the user, apologize for the problems, and walk them through reassigning a static IP and the associated info. All checks out, user is back on the network, and all is good again. I hang up and look to my coworker. "Your time was 10 minutes and 52 seconds." [link] [comments]  |
| Always remember to shutdown switch ports connected to extra/empty rj45 wall jacks... Posted: 29 Jan 2021 05:27 PM PST Here's a pretty good one... When covid hit we sent everyone home with a laptop, their desk phone, poe injectors for the phones, wifi extenders, everything needed to keep everyone working. One morning, when people started returning to the office.... BAM! Lights out (not really), literally all network services stop working. Devices would ping, but not reliably. Connections working intermittently and dropping/timing out. IT dept starts running around like mad- checking servers, router/switch configs, firewall logs, you name it. About 45 minutes goes by, everything looks fine... it finally hits me. Can you guess what happened? I'm like... hold on, give me a few minutes... I'll be back, and start lurking around the office on the hunt for the perpetrator. I knew it smelled an awful lot like a loop from the start, but we were looking at the problem too close up. Checking the server rooms, switches, etc. Sure enough, somebody who had just returned to the office that morning, trying to set their VOIP phone back up at their desk. They took the network cable from the LAN port on the phone, plugged it into the wall network jack. All good. Essentially the same thing as if they took 1 network cable, plugged it into a switch, took the other end of that network cable, and plugged that end into another port on the switch. You better believe that we went around and found any unused network ports around the office and disabled the associated switch ports after that one... which, admittedly, should have been done from the start. [link] [comments]  |
| Voice-activated Scanner - Or is it? Posted: 29 Jan 2021 06:58 PM PST I was training dental staff on how to use the new x-ray scanner I had installed that morning in their practice, and was about 20mins in. I had showed the staff how to put the little x-ray film into the machine and click the "Scan" button in the software of the attached computer. I was quickly going through the steps again and in came one of the hygienists, who had decided to see a patient last minute instead of attend the start of the training - She apologized for being late and curiously asked "What did I miss?" - so not only was she interrupting me, but now I had to explain it all again. So a thought came into my mind. They were a nice bunch of people and very kind and friendly. So, knowing I could play a little joke, I said to the hygienist "Oh, you're just in time. I was showing them how to scan the x-ray using the voice activation function." She said "Really! It's voice-activated?" I slotted the x-ray holder into the machine and told her to lean towards the machine and say "Scan!" - As she did, I looked over at the others and winked. They suddenly realized that I was kidding, and some of them had to cover their mouths to stop bursting out laughing. She said "Nothing happened" She turn to me and I had a huge grin on my face, and she looked at the others who were starting to laugh now. She said "Oh....It's not voice-activated is it!" I said "Nope" Everyone laughed so hard. Even her. Later that day I was finishing off some of the configurations on the PC's and I could hear her telling one of her patients about the joke I played on her, and she was still laughing. I actually met her a year or two later at a convention we were both at; She is a really nice lady. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 05:43 PM PST This happened back on Thanksgiving Day 2012. Quick backstory: Prior to this, I was on a rotation and my manager for the rotation and I really hit it off. One thing we had in common was a love of the band Cannibal Corpse and he introduced me to the documentary "Before the Light Takes Us," about the Norwegian Black Metal scene, which is where the subject got his name. The subjects:
So because it's a US holiday and I'm working the English queue it was slow and I had time on my hands, which is why I gladly accepted a takeover for an emailed ticket from a front line agent. She said "He's really upset but it's a simple issue. He won't listen and he keeps saying mean things." We have a policy on extreme behavior that allows us to just dump these kinds of customers but, due to boredom, I took the escalation and review the case. The customer's first response is about how he wants to shove a large knife into the front line advisor's baby maker and spin the blade, so against my better judgment (Boredom, ya know?) I decided to give him a second chance. Sent the standard "Sir, please keep the language appropriate for a professional environment" and sent the information to resolve his account issue. Send, go to lunch. I log back in after lunch and find a response. I open it and if you thought threatening to shove a knife inside of someone and hollow them out was a one-off...you'd be SERIOUSLY mistaken. He sent me a response and I'll paraphrase but I clearly remember the title of his email response "**** YOU ***HOLE." The body of this email was a graphic description about how I don't want to mess with him and if I refuse to get his account up and working "RIGHT ****ING NOW" he will hunt every one of our employees like animals, bathe in our blood and then burn down our entire company. After I read his response I reach out to the MOD (Manager on Duty) email to ask how to file a report to Corporate Security per policy on extreme behavior. My manager from the rotation was MOD and he asked why I needed Corporate Security, so I forward the customer interaction to him. Five minutes later, phone rings. It's Corporate Security Officer asking me to make a statement. After I tell him everything he laughs and says "The MOD just emailed me for an update about 'Black Metal Guy'" Thus the customer got his name. After that I was instructed to forward any further responses to Corporate Security Officer's work email address and close his case as resolved. Here's the issue that set all of this off: An unpaid order for $2.99 that was over 30 days past due, so it closed his account pending payment. Had he done as both front line agent and I said, which is "Update your credit card on file" he would have had access to his account and could have gone about his day. Instead, he got a permanent ban from our company, a visit from the cops and the moniker "Black Metal Guy" [link] [comments]  |
| I don't want to be Tech Support: Overheating Appliance Posted: 29 Jan 2021 07:01 PM PST I've posted a few stories about some of my experiences while working as a computer builder and tech back in the early 2000s. Being in tech support was never really my goal, but as to old adage goes, "Just when I thought I was out, they keep pulling me back in!" I graduated college in 2003 with a BA in Religious Studies and Philosophy (I'm a preacher and tech. I'll backup your soul and save your data... or something like that). Immediately after college I worked in a factory for a few years while I pastored a small church. At the factory I didn't have to do much tech support because, you know, being a multi-national business has its plusses, including an actual tech support team who has been to school AND EVERYTHING. After rising through the ranks there, I was offered more of a management position at a place closer to home for more money. Smaller company, "family" feel, that kind of thing. So I took it. I now work for a group of people who, traditionally, shun a lot of modern technology. No, not that group. Making generalities here of course, but I'm setting the scene. So now I work at a warehouse whose home office is on the East Coast. I'm in the Midwest. Our sales software, inventory management software, email, etc... is all accessed via remote desktop to hosted machines on the other side of the US. So we have to have computers locally, but everything is done remotely. Ooookay, I haven't worked for a lot of companies, but whatever, I can adapt. Except for the "security appliance". We hates, HATES, the security appliance, Gollum! The security appliance was mandated by the church the salesmen go to. The main company just went along with it, as you do. It sits between the internet at large and the rest of the network. It filters by keyword, content, and some sort of black magic that is only known by the people who maintain the software of this monstrosity. It is, for all intents and purposes, a black box, and I immediately take offense to it. Part of my job is shipping with LTL freight, which means I need access to the internet in order to properly quote freight costs. This is a problem when, for instance, I need to quote a customer that has "Brewery" in the name. $me: address -f 'Southern TN Brewery' --quote -w '300' -d '48x48x48' -c 'R&L' $sa: error: go pound sand You can imagine I have no love for a black box on the network I have to use. So it was with utter joy when I started to hear capacitor whine. The power supply fan had long stopped spinning, and I could only imagine the amount of dust inside the case that I could not, under any circumstances, open in order to clean. The crashes, reboots, and a few other things all pointed to an undeniable future: the appliance was slowly dying because of overheating, caused in part by poor ventilation, a solid layer of thick dust, and failing fans. I started emailing our one man tech team on the east coast. I started complaining about the slow internet speeds (true), remote desktop freezes (true), inability to do my job (slightly exaggerated for drama). He asked ME what we should replace it with, as they don't use that kind of security appliance there, because why would they? The taste of victory was so very close. I praised the low cost and ease of use of pfSense, and how I could manually tune a firewall that I had access to, that would allow me to make allowances for such cases as above, how we could still be "safe" from the big bad internet, and so on. I didn't take this job to be tech support, but I wasn't going to let this opportunity slide by. I couldn't stand the thought of a black box on a network that I was becoming responsible for. After several months of back and forth (a theme that will become apparent if I'm able to continue these stories), an upgrade to fiber internet that the old box could not handle, a decision was made. After "weighing all of the options" to get another security appliance from the SAME COMPANY as before. Oh, I didn't mention we had a contract with them, right? Because they forgot about that! Not my company, the company that the accursed appliance came from. They. Lost. Our. Contract. They were supposed to be actively monitoring the security appliance but they hadn't for YEARS. My company was paying them monthly for support, support that was never rendered because they lost our info. So the obvious choice was to reward them with a longer contract, buying an overpriced machine from them, and staying the course. So what was my solution to all of this? Remember how I said that all of our software was hosted virtually? I did a couple of test searches, and lo and behold! I could search the addresses of breweries. Now I host a VM on my personal server and remote into that anytime I need to find the address of a location that randomly trips the security appliance. The internet is filtered, but not RDP connections! I don't want to be tech support, but I oftentimes find myself in that position. [link] [comments]  |
| Why'd you remove email access for my dead father? Posted: 29 Jan 2021 09:43 AM PST This post reminded me of a fairly recent short interaction with a user that came through. We're a small liberal arts college, and have some interesting policies that impact user management - like retirees get to keep their email. This is great for them in some capacities, but often causes issues with older users that just don't understand how they can have an email but not have access to all our paid resources that are under license. What further complicates things is... well, we don't always get a death notice. Enter our user ($User) - the daughter of a long retired prof. that has used our email to ticket system. A tech ($Tech) from another team handles this, as I watch amused. $User: Hi there - I can no longer access XXXX@YYY.edu. Can you please return my access? $Tech: Hi $User, we show that this account is inactive. Can you please verify that you are Prof. Emeritus XXX for us? We can ask you questions via phone, or you can present us with a copy of your fac/staff ID $User: No. I'm his daughter. $Tech: I understand $User. We will need to verify with XXXX that he still needs access to the account. $User: I don't think you understand. I am his daughter. We are using this email to keep in touch with some people that were friends of his. He passed in [month] $Tech: Sorry for your loss. Unfortunately, we cannot keep this account open if he is no longer actively using the account. Please let us know if there are specific emails that you would like us to forward to another account. $User: Does this mean I can't use Word anymore? $Tech: [sends link to list of who gets access to what when] $User: So there is no way that I can maintain access to these things? XXXX always told us that your IT treated him like [expletive], but this is unreal. We'll be stopping our contribution to [oddly specific alumni scholarship] fund. The ticket went on with an offer to escalate, but there is no response. Guess that's one way to lose donors :0 [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 10:35 AM PST Hello all I'm back again with a doozy of a story, and this one happened only yesterday. The cast are as follows;
So this call came three minutes before it was time to clock out and off the heels of a 2 hour long call where they kept finding new issues for me to fix. So needless to say I'm not really in the best mood, but I thought it would be something easy like a password reset or showing a user how their email works. Ohhhh boy was wrong. I answer the call as usual:
I pull the users most recent ticket up, and it's already not looking good.
I'm gonna be honest with you my fellow redditors, this question actually caught me off guard. I really didn't know how to answer, mainly because I already told her the answer and she just didn't want to listen.
At this point I'm eying the liquor cabinet from my work at home setup.
She proceeded to remote me into a different computer so I could see if the computer was talking to the network, it was not and I informed the user of this.
She did just that and I was still unable to find this computer on the network which of course is not good, as the new coworker messed up and moved it to a workgroup and was unable to add it back to the domain. The only account available to the user was our local admin account so she couldn't login. After a bit more talking, I had to send her computer to out depot team for a reimage. The call ended without further incident, and I got a few much needed drinks. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 01:07 PM PST Previously on "Field Technician watches multi-billion dollar companies lose thousands trying to save hundreds while shrugging his shoulders and cashing the check" Same store from part I, II, and IV. Our favorite multi-billion-dollar cheapskate. Their cheapness also extends to their training program. Including their forklift training program. The 'test' is multiple choice, the order of the questions or answers never change, and you can retake it as many times as you want. As you can imagine, trial and error 'passes' plenty of people. Which means these glorious examples of humanity frequently smack things with pallets. Often things hanging from the ceiling. Such as my wifi making wireless access points. Then I have to go out and figure out where it landed or was hidden, and remount it. But there was one store that made this an art form. Exploring the back rooms, I was absolutely flabbergasted by the level of destruction caused by forklifts. The stockroom walls had fork holes in them from being run into by forklifts Even better, one of the steel girders holding up the ceiling- was BENT. They'd BENT a steel girder. Apparently this phenomenon of elevated destruction had once snapped off a sprinkler head, and the pressure change set off the entire building's sprinklers. Store had to be evacuated and was closed two days to remove damaged merchandise and clean. Yet- proper forklift training is just SOOOOOOOoooo expEEEEENSIVE. [link] [comments]  |
| Please don't close your computer... Posted: 29 Jan 2021 09:34 AM PST TL;DR: Guy doesn't know what his desktop is, and keeps closing and opening his laptop while I'm trying to help via remote support. I work at a local tech shop where we fix both personal and business computers, and provide IT support for local businesses. We also occasionally provide remote support for residential clients (mainly older people). This story is one of those times... One of our clients is a 90-something year old Greek guy who is super nice, but just really doesn't know what is going on regarding computers. Anyway, he called in and says he ran into a few issues. He said sometimes it takes a while for his computer to wake up after he opens it, he can't access his online banking anymore, and he needs help finding the page with "the apps". I told him I can certainly help with that. We have a link on our website to download our remote support tool, and helping him navigate to it was... an experience. He didn't know what a web browser was, so after trying to explain it for a few minutes he goes, "Ah! The Google!" So I tell him yes, use "the Google" (Google Chrome) to go to our website (had to explain where the URL bar is too). Once he gets to what I presume is our website, he starts reading me everything he sees... Him: "I see home, I see [company logo], I see a smiling man," etc., everything except the menu option he needs to click on. After a minute or so of not being able to get a word in, he eventually finds it, clicks on it, and starts reading everything he sees on the next page... About 10 minutes of trying to guide him through typing in the code and opening the downloaded file, I can finally remote in, and oh boy... It was in high-contrast mode, airplane mode was on (plugged in via ethernet so I still had connection), and "the Google" had multiple windows, 20+ tabs open, and was zoomed in so far you could only see a website's navigation bar and that was about it (250%+ or so zoom). I started to put out the initial fires, but he randomly starts closing and opening his computer trying to show me that it doesn't come up right away (which it does), making it rather difficult to continue working... Once I was finally able to explain to him that he needs to stop doing that so I can help him, I started to troubleshoot the sleeping issue. I checked his power settings, checked to make sure it wasn't going into hibernate mode, which it wasn't, etc. I told him there's not really much I can do about his computer intermittently taking a while to wake from sleep, but I said I can try running some Windows repair tools to see if that helps. SFC was taking a while, so I asked him to give me a call back when it finished: Me: "See that percentage there?" (referring to SFC percent complete) Him: "Yes" Me: "Ok, give me a call when it reaches 100%, ok?" Him: "You want me to close the computer and open it again?" Me: *facepalm* "No... just let me know when that number reaches 100%." Him: "Ok, I will do that." Something like 30 minutes later he gives me a call back, I remote back in, and everything seems to be ok. He asks me to help him find "the page with the apps", so I go through "the Google", thinking it's either the new tab page where there are icons of recent website's he's been to, or his bookmarks bar/folder, something like that. He says that none of those are what he's looking for, so I close out of "the Google" and he goes, "Ah! There it is!" The guy really didn't know what a desktop was... I had to explain that "the Google" was an application that opened on top of his desktop, and to get back to his desktop, he had to close out of it so he could open something else. He had like 2-3 pictures on his desktop he liked to open every now and then. Overall, he's a super nice guy, thanked me for helping him, etc. It's just funny sometimes what some people don't know about things that others do daily. [link] [comments]  |
| My password is a hypertext protocol Posted: 29 Jan 2021 06:24 AM PST Here is an amusing little tidbit from an interaction I had yesterday. Where I work we use a combination of Gmail and Exchange for email services, depending on where people work. This has become a small problem with the rise of Teams, because Gmail isn't compatible with it. This means we need to provide a new email address (with only a Teams license attached, no mailbox) to the people on the Gmail side so that they can use Teams. $user needed access to Teams, so I created a new exchange address for them and sent them over the details. Shortly after I receive an email. $user (email): Hi, I'm having trouble with this. When you get a moment can you help me as it's not making any sense. As with most requests I get that provide me few details, I pushed it towards the bottom of my to-do list and got on with some other things. I'm in the middle of provisioning a new PC in another office when $user catches me. $user: Oh, I'm still stick with Teams. It's not letting me log in. $me: What do you mean? What sort of feedback is the program giving you? $user: Incorrect password. I'm using the one you gave me, that one that starts with "https". And that is when the penny dropped. See, when sending out passwords I try to follow best practise and refrain from sending them plain-text in an email. I use a website called password-push to store the password, and send the direct link to it over to the end user. Despite the fact that this link presented itself as, well, any link does...underlined and blue, this user still tried to copy and paste the URL and use it as the actual password. $me: Oh, no. That's a link, you need to click it and it will give you the actual password. $user: Oh, you mean I click it and then choose my password? $me: No, you click it and it will give you the actual password to copy. Let me know if you have trouble. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I didn't hear back from that user. Next time I will remember to very explicitly state that the password is actually a link to the password. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 02:53 PM PST This happened fairly recently and is by far the most disgusting thing I've seen in a machine. I work in the IT department for a call center. When we get machines back, they're pretty frequently full of covered in grossness. Which, on a side note we have a high turnover rate and it amazes me when someone's had our machine in their possession for 2 weeks and it comes back disgusting and occasionally reeks of cigarette smoke. So, an agents manager comes to us stating an agents machine isn't starting. We ended up determining that the machine was stuck at POST and not doing anything after that. Because we're in a remote environment with only myself, facilities, and occasionally sales managers coming into the physical office we co-ordinated a time for the agent to come swap machines. The swap happens and I take the machine back to the IT room and start investigating. Upon opening the machine I was greeted to a horrid sight. This machine was absolutely infested with roaches to the brim, both full grown and babies. I managed to take the machine outside and using an electric air blower to blow the fuckers outta there and double bagging it and leaving it be (still bagged btw). The unfortunate thing is with the machine being in the IT room for the short period of time it was, some of the roaches ended up getting into the IT room. We ended up having to setup a bunch of traps and subsequently having someone come in to bomb the room before it spread to the whole building. I've yet to have that topped but I'm sure all in good time. TL:DR - Agent returned a roach infested machine which then spread to the IT room. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 29 Jan 2021 10:00 AM PST Seeing another post about a user throwing a tantrum about losing a file after not saving reminded me of one of my first IT support experiences. This took place in 1995 when monitors were big boxy things that could have something called burn-in and $Me: me, unofficial bystander $LT: "lab technician" - official title, in actuality someone who got the job simply because they knew how to type. No I'm not kidding, that was their only qualification by their own admission. $Karen: the star user tl;dr: see title I'm sitting in a community college computer lab working on my Spanish lesson, minding my own business. Suddenly I hear the high pitched screech of a first generation $Karen in extreme distress. Before the windows could stop vibrating the $LT immediately ran over to $Karen to assist. What followed was a largely incoherent rant at high volume and high pitch. I managed to pick out words like "hours", "it's all gone", "do something". Meanwhile the $LT looks like a hypnotized chicken. I sigh knowing what's about to happen. I walk across the lab and politely ask what the problem is. $LT continues the hypnotized chicken while $Karen drags in a deep breath and explains all over again (slightly more coherently) that she's been writing her paper all day, she's been there like 6 hours, its due tomorrow, and now it's all gone. She begins bemoaning under her breath about how it's all gone, all that work gone, what will she do, it's gone to the toasters. Now if you worked with Apple computers in the early 1990's you might be familiar with a software program called After Dark. After Dark was a very early screensaver program meant to prevent image burn-in on CRT (big boxy) monitors. It would typically kick in after a set time of inactivity. And one of its most iconic screensavers were flying toasters. Fortunately I was this $Karen's hero of the day as I shook the mouse and magically "recovered" her paper. I then explained what a screensaver was to both the $LT (finally human) and $Karen. I then explained the importance of saving your documents often and even showed her how. Her relief was so great that she thoroughly learned her lesson on document saving. I also had a chat with the $LT after this, off to the side, asking him what his qualifications were for the job (he knew how to type), what it paid, and if they were hiring. Sadly I didn't qualify as I wasn't a full time student but I really questioned the hiring folks desperation. [link] [comments]  |
| Help me learn to send an email Posted: 29 Jan 2021 12:18 PM PST Yesterday I received a phone call through the helpdesk queue from 555-867-5309 that was identified as a Mylife, Fuck. This person was stating that she had her laptop hooked up to her phone for internet and was wondering how to access her email. I asked if she was logged in (yes) so I had her open Chrome and then tried to get her to go to our website but she was not able to accomplish this as typing in a short URL and pressing enter (especially pressing enter) was apparently a mountain sized challenge for her. Luckily the student laptops default to our instructional site and luckily on that page is a easy to find drop down menu of school links that luckily includes Student email. I had her click on this menu and then student email, this lead to this webpage which although is not where to sign in to student email it does include a big orange box for that. When she got to this page she stated she wanted to go to her Yahoo email. I stated that we only support school systems and if she wants to use her Yahoo email she will need to go Yahoo, find the link to the email, and login. She then decided to use her school email so I had her click on the orange login box which took her through SSO to the student email. She then asked how to send a picture. I stated that she would do that the same way she would any other email service but this appeared to be confusing so I walked her through how to create a new message in Outlook web and told her where to click to attach a file. Call ended. [link] [comments]  |
| It doesn’t work because of bugs! Posted: 29 Jan 2021 02:01 AM PST First thread of my own, be gentle. Posting on mobile etc TLDR: at the bottom So, my current role is in Application Support and one of the major Apps I support is used by various contractors, some of whom will access the management side of things via a Citrix published app. So we've recently engaged new contractors on values that have lots of Zeros after them. Our service desk set up the relevant users, we did some training and all is good...so we thought. Then we get an email from the manager of NewCompany X, cc'd to the manager of the contract, the project manager and several General Managers. "It doesn't work due to bugs in the system and it's been like this since the training day (10 days ago) so we are going to have to delay the contract" Now during training, all the users were told to phone our Helpdesk for critical issues and were supplied electronic and physical copies of "how to log in and what to do if you have problems" Within two minutes of this email, the PM is ringing me and asking me to fix the bug. Well, I reply, the Citrix portal is working externally. The user has an account and hasn't logged in. And we can see other external users successfully connected. We need to know what error he's getting. And now my will to work with people starts to leech even further out of my soul.. The Project Mgr tells me that the contractor said Bugs in the system and I should fix it. Ring the contractor. Leave voice mail asking them to call me (because naturally, they didn't answer the phone!) Get an email (again cc'd to everyone) I still can't login due to bugs in the system. Ring immediately- no answer, leave Voicemail. Almost immediately my phone rings to have questions from one of the GMs as to why I'm holding up a contract worth $$$$$$$$. Explain the above. Phone rings with another GM. Rinse and repeat. Explain we will try calling the contractor again in the morning. Morning time and contractor answers the phone, tells me it still doesn't work due to bugs and he will call me back shortly. Phone blows up with more calls from people higher up the corporate food chain. 4 hours later contractor emails (everyone he'd emailed earlier) to say "It's working fine" I said lots of words that I don't want my children to repeat and my tech support soul lost a bit more of itself to silicon heaven. TLDR: new contractor whinges they can't do their job due to bugs in our system, but won't tell us what errors they get or even how far into the process they go. Only response we end up with is that it works magically. [link] [comments]  |
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