'The screen is flashing and making loud noises' Tech Support |
- 'The screen is flashing and making loud noises'
- IT sees everything!
- Solitaire is much needed for HR
- In which users are impressed by my language skills.
- Design Department De-obfuscation Delirium, Part 2: Digging deeper
- The Snowball of Design Limitations
- 50 member call center Day 1 issue
| 'The screen is flashing and making loud noises' Posted: 24 Jan 2021 12:39 AM PST Hi, everyone! I was browsing through recommended subs and the moment I saw this, I had to share my experience! I work for an online gambling firm, rather than having loads of varying departments, we try to resolve as much as possible with one agent to create a better customer experience to save transferring customers. On my first day, I was listening into someone taking the calls. The line would beep, and then the IVR machine would say the query type 'billing' or 'technical' for example. Not long into listening in, there was the beep and the IVR said technical. The call was connected, and they started the discussion. An elderly lady had called up because her screen was flashing lots of different colours, and was making a lot of noise so she had to turn the sound off. The agent asked what she had been doing, and she is navigating around the account details as the lady is detailing what she sees on her screen. She describes what sounds like a broken monitor but it's only just happened. At this point it sounded like the lady had put the phone down on a surface for a moment as you could hear her mithering in the background. This is when the agent I'm listening into, starts to go white. She taps my hand and on the screen she has highlighted the balance of the customers account. £297k Immediately throws her hand in the air to alert of a big win, we have people crowded around the desk. I feel SOOOO pumped at this time. The lady comes back onto the phone and says she went to get her glasses. The agent says to her really calmly, 'I think I have found the problem, but I need you to turn your sound on'. The sound is duly turned on, and the agent hits the speakerphone button on her terminal, and we all hear the sound of party poppers and general 'celebration' sounds. The flashing screen and the sounds were the notification that she had won a progressive jackpot. The agent asks her to sit down, and she calmly says 'You've won £297k, I have never been so happy to confirm there is no technical issue'. The lady is quiet for several seconds before shouting 'Albert, quickly come here, ALBERT, ALBEEEERT! ` At this point a senior had the call to arrange getting the funds sent out, and I carried on listening in for the day. Edit to change gaming to gambling as easily misinterpretated. [link] [comments]  |
| Posted: 23 Jan 2021 05:37 AM PST EDIT: You can tell which commenters work in call centers and try to avoid work instead of actually doing what they're paid to do like adults. For those concerned - my role actually requires me to document when these things happen and put their manager on the watch list in the ticket. When people report issues that aren't real, admit to damaging property, resist attempts to troubleshoot or refuse to let me do my job. It's because a lot of the casual staff are working from home and not paid for downtime unless it's justified. The company needs to know if and when their money is being spent correctly. I've recently started working in tech support for the first time. 18 years in call centers and offices, never once tried my hand at tech support. My now employer hired me basically because they wanted to try employing good customer service people they can train to do nerd stuff, as opposed to trying to teach the very smart but frankly quite rude staff to be better at talking to people. Anyway, most users are fine. They can't do basic stuff like clearing cookies and cache, but we have some that know a little too much for their own good and I had one call me on Friday. Her: Hey, I've got a citrix freeze so I shut down. I'll need a ticket for the 10 minutes you need to reset the session.Me: Alright, got the ticket filled out. Let me check your session and see what's lagging it.Her: You don't need to do that, just reset it and give me the ticket number. Now users do this because they know that a citrix reset will take 10 minutes to ensure it's a new session, and they just want 10 minutes off the phones. Some users have daily tickets for this. I know what she's aiming for, and I won't be an accessory to her trying to avoid work. I look at her session, and there's no indication it's frozen. Everything is exactly as it should be, except she's shut down her soft phone. I remote into her station and see that she's set her comms to appear offline, and closed her soft phone. She's sending someone a message on Teams to say she's calling IT to lodge a ticket for downtime and will combine it with her break so she gets longer off. Me: Everything appears fine to me, no frozen session.Her: No no, I told you. It's frozen. No calls are coming in at all. I just need a ticket!Me: Well we need to justify resetting the session, and I'm not seeing any reason why you'd need to spend that time in downtime.Her: Okay, I don't understand why you're not listening to me. My session froze. I can't move the keyboard or mouse. I can't take calls. You. Need. To. Reset. It!Me: Alright, let's test that theory. I take control and make her available on Teams, then open up her soft phone and put her in an available status. A call starts ringing immediately and I even answer it for her. I attached the screenshots of the chat to the ticket and document what happened, then put her team leader on the CC list for the ticket. I wonder if we'll get an offboarding request for her this week? [link] [comments]  |
| Solitaire is much needed for HR Posted: 23 Jan 2021 02:16 PM PST I noticed telling this story to co-workers many times now but i haven't told it here so here we go. In mid 2018 the central IT department (middle-sized research facility) I worked in at the time came to the final realization that Windows 7 won't do another comeback so we started shipping Windows 10 only from June 2018 and my task was to coordinate the switch of all 1100 maschines by hand. Part of this was to introduce the local IT help departments to the new OS (we started with 1709) and told them everything that they should know. The HR department had its own IT coordinator and i was only responsible for showing the new installation process and the software catalog, they were doing the rest on their own. At some point the IT coordinator asked, if Solitaire is still included on which i responded that with the standard installation routine the Microsoft Solitaire Collection will be removed so that users cannot use it. She then asked me if it is possible to somehow copy the old Windows 7 solitaire game to the system and i remembered that there is a installation routine for Windows 8/10 available on the internet that brings back the old games. I then continued to ask why this is needed, if they do not have to work instead of gaming while spending tax payers money. (side note: HR workers in this research facility had unified lunch time at 11:30am for 30min in which they were supposed to take a break from the office so they should not use their computer during lunch break.) TLDR: I declined a request to allow gaming on HR workstations. [link] [comments]  |
| In which users are impressed by my language skills. Posted: 23 Jan 2021 11:51 AM PST A recent post brought back a fond memory. It was 1996 and I'd been sent to HK to install a new server and train the users on the new software. I didn't speak any Chinese and only about half the staff had conversational English so I'd prepared training manuals and a lesson plan and we'd organised interpretation duties. So on training day, I would explain points, demonstrate on the computer and refer to the full-of-illustrations training manual. I would pause for interpretation and questions quite frequently. I was mid-lecture and had just explained a particular point when one of the staff asked a question in Chinese. We'd been using the software in regional HQ for several months and I'd supported/trained quite a few people. Combined with the context of other questions being asked, I knew with high certainty what the question was and answered it (in English) before I received the interpretation. A couple of people looked surprised, a few more looked impressed. One interpreter asked, oh?! you understand Chinese? "Nope, I just knew what the question would be." Yeah yeah, cool story bro, but it amused me! [link] [comments]  |
| Design Department De-obfuscation Delirium, Part 2: Digging deeper Posted: 23 Jan 2021 12:23 PM PST Sorry that it took me so long to write this down, but I was trying to avoid the biggest IT disaster I have ever heard of, which you might hear about when the NDA expires. Anyway, back to this disaster of a workflow. The next morning there was a box on my desk with a note that read "Sample of new workstations for validation purposes". Great, testing on actual hardware is easier than in a VM. Upon opening the box however, it turned out the "workstation" was a laptop. With USB-C and mini displayport as it's only connectors. Great, now I also need to figure out how to connect 5 monitors, trackball, keyboard and high speed ethernet to this thing. At the very least it had a quadro, and an 8core cpu with 64gb of ram. I started imaging our standard win10 install to it, when Jack walks by my desk. The night prior i'd sent him an email to ask about his NAS, as that was probably the biggest security risk. He walks me to DD, ducks under a very low door into a broom closet, and opens another door into a very small room with a Server rack in it. I had no idea that room even existed, or what it was for(I learned later that it used to be a freight elevator and for some reaosn on this floor it was made into a room). jack: DD's guy that knows networks me: me me: So, what do you have here exactly jack: that(pointing to a generic 4U rack case) is a dual X79 xeon server, with 10 6TB drives in it, above it is a 10gig switch and above that a UPS. me: 10gig? but all our networks are gigabit? and why do you have your own switch here in the first place? every desk has an ethernet cable. jack: yeah, I know, but we needed more than a gigabit to our network storage. That's why I built it in the first place. me: Right, ok. Does it only do storage or also something else? jack: Nope, only storage. (Narrator: it did do something else) me: And is this backupped in any way shape or form? jack: yes, it's a raid 1 me, screaming internally that raid is not a backup: Thank you, I'll send you an email if I need anything else Back at my desk I decided to call Networks and Storage Infrastructure to see if we couldn't get these guys some storage on our SANs and a high speed link. NG: networks guy, SIG: storage infrastructure guy NG: Hello this is Networks how can I help you. me: Hi, it's AnnoyedSystemAdmin, I'm moving DD to central infrastructure NG: *audible gasp* ok.... okay. What do you need from us? me: I was wondering if we could get them something faster than a gigabit line to the SANs NG: Uh, I don't know, everyone else is on gigabit. Our switches outside the backbones are all just gigabit. I don't think it's possible. me: Can you figure out if there is another way? NG: Let me connect you to my manager NG's manager: Hello this is Networks management how can I help you? me: Hi, it's AnnoyedSystemAdmin I was wondering if we could get something faster than Gigabit to our SANs for one of the departments. NG's manager: What on earth would they need that for? me: I'm moving DD to central infrastructure NG's manager: Oh, in that case. In theory we could split off one of the 25gig fiber lines into a couple 10gig lines just for them, instead of into 100 gigabit lines. Let me call you back on that, I'll have to run it past budgeting. me: Thank you for your help Right, that's one thing sorted, time to see if getting their 60TB of storage will be equally easy. SIG isn't known to be very friendly to outsiders however. SIG: This is Storage Infrastructure, no we won't give you any more space, especially if you call us for it me: Hi, it's AnnoyedSystemAdmin, I'm moving DD to central infrastructure. SIG: And? me: Can you tell me how much storage they have allocated to each user and the department as a whole? SIG: Sure. One sec. Looks like they have the standerd 500gb per user, no shared storage for the department. Huh, weird, every other one has a little bit shared at the very least me: So, how much can you give them for shared storage? SIG: Dunno, I guess I could get them 2TB which is the default for most departments me: Unfortunatly, that's nowhere near enough. What needs to be done to get them around 30TB? SIG: 60tb? no fucking way. What in gods name would they need that for? The're getting by without, clearly? for 60tb we'd have to buy a new whole new disk shelf. *disconnects call* Ok, that could've gone better. I ask my manager for the Storage infrastructure manager's direct number. SIG's manager: Hi this is storage infrastructure management, what does this call concen? me: Hi, it's AnnoyedSystemAdmin, I'm moving DD... SIG's manager: AHAHAHAHAH you're the guy hoping to get 30TB. How did you even get this number? Like SIG said, there is no way in hell you're getting that 30TB, now stop wasting our time. me: They really need that storage. Currently they have their own server in a broomcloset without backup, I'm sure you'll agree that's not acceptable. SIG's manager: Sure but not my problem me: Do you need me to tell INFOSEC that I wanted to fix an urgent problem but you made that impossible? SIG's manager: YEAH, ACTUALLY, IF YOU NEED YOUTR STORAGE SO BADLY GO COMPLAIN TO INFOSEC *disconnects call* One call to INFOSEC later I got an email from SIG saying I'll have the storage by tommorow evening. Later that day NG sends me an email they'll have the connection ready tonight, and then they just need Facilities to run the 10gig cables from the network closet to DD. Next part(hopefully sooner than a month) i'll get back to building a Win10 image for these people. It did not go smoothly. 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| The Snowball of Design Limitations Posted: 23 Jan 2021 05:54 PM PST Removed as I had a question at the end. Reposted without. The recent Design Department post by annoyedsystemadmin made me remember something I saw years ago. A company I used to work for (fairly ubiquitous, depending upon your job you probably use its products at least a few times a year knowingly or not) had a very complex environment whose foundation was first built back in the early 80's. Each year since then new bits and pieces were added to it. By the time I came onboard the environment had grown to accommodate 10+ divisions and many many applications, tools, databases, etc. Of note were three applications I became quite familiar with. The interplay between these three was pretty complex, used by thousands of clients, served tens of millions end users a year, created tens of millions of physical tokens a year, and was governed by a variety of regulatory bodies and industry standards, etc. Making one little change required lots and lots of other changes to accommodate the overall impact to the environment both in my division and within other divisions. One application stored an end user's information, personal data, primary key data, etc etc. It saved the user name as First Name and Last Name. (My division) A tool then transmitted a lot of this data to a second application (different division). The tool sent over the user name as one field. The second application parsed the name using the space between the two (another division). That space indicated where to split the "name" field back into a first and last name. The first and last name were then physically imprinted on a device akin to a token that was then mailed to the user. A third application handled instances where this token was used, verifying it's bonafides and permitting transactions to proceed (back to my division). Here comes the design limitation. If a person only had one word first and one word last names everything worked flawlessly. However, multiple word names such as "Werner Von Braun" or "Betty Sue Thompson" could prompt the parsing to go sideways, causing an issue. The name would be printed out of order on the token and saved out of order in the data inside the token. One possible workaround was to intentionally enter the first and last name improperly in the first application, wait until the token was created, then correct the data in the first application. However, that would make the two out of sync. And when the user swiped their token that discrepancy would be detected by the third application. If a particular security measure was engaged, the discrepancy would cause the transaction to fail. If the security measure was not engaged, that left the client exposed to a form of penetration (some insurance companies required that this measure be engaged). Most clients naturally objected to this workaround. The next workaround was to leave the improperly arranged name in the first application. However, that would force users to always type in their name wrong whenever they used a virtual version of the token online. Otherwise, like before, the transaction could fail. Clients naturally objected to this workaround too. The only surefire way to make all this work internally was to change the end user's name in the first application. "Betty Sue Thompson" is now Betty Thompson. "Werner Von Braun" is now Werner Braun. However, In rare instances external security measures by other institutions could cause all of the above to fail anyway. Again, client objections. In the late 90's someone did a study of how to resolve this. The estimate was about 3K work hours and a truckload of money. So nothing was done. Then somewhere around 2005-2007, another study was done. The estimate had grown to about about 5-6K work hours and planeloads of money. So nothing was done. (The relevant code was so deeply and intricately embedded in so many parts of the foundation of the environment, both estimates always struck me as incredibly cheap. Let's get it done!) I've been away from the company for some years now. So I don't know know if this issue is still in place or if it was resolved. Best guess a little of both, har har. (The company was infamous amongst its staff for doing something only halfway to save a few pennies). [link] [comments]  |
| 50 member call center Day 1 issue Posted: 23 Jan 2021 12:28 PM PST Back when AT&T Definity was "the" pbx system to have, I set up the workstations, headsets, phones and fax to printer system for a 50 seat medical coding company. Day 1 and everything is ready to go and employees in place. Calls are coming in and I am busy watching the fax server, printers and general pc issues. Twenty minutes from start I see a gaggle of suits gathering in the small conference room. One of them looked over and motioned for me to join them. He pointed up to the tracking board and asked why the incoming call queue was so high. I looked up and said, "See that number under the Incoming Calls? That's the number of employees logged into the queue. " The number was 18. We rushed around the room telling people to get logged into their phones and the Queue quickly dropped down. This place was a source of much drama concerning IT and office intrigue. More stories to follow. [link] [comments]  |
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